Emanuel, Blago had “conversations” on Senate successionposted at 11:23 am on December 13, 2008 by Ed Morrissey

The categorical denials coming from Barack Obama on the Rod Blagojevich pay-to-play scandal took another hit today from the Chicago Tribune. Two sources confirm that Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s new chief of staff, had a number of conversations with Blagojevich chief of staff John Harris to discuss acceptable candidates to fill the rest of Obama’s Senate term. These conversations got captured by federal wiretaps and will likely be reviewed by a grand jury looking to indict people on corruption charges:

Rahm Emanuel, President-elect Barack Obama’s pick to be White House chief of staff, had conversations with Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s administration about who would replace Obama in the U.S. Senate, the Tribune has learned.

The revelation does not suggest Obama’s new gatekeeper was involved in any talk of dealmaking involving the seat. But it does help fill in the gaps surrounding a question that Obama was unable or unwilling to answer this week: Did anyone on his staff have contact with Blagojevich about his choice for the Senate seat? …

One source confirmed that communications between Emanuel and the Blagojevich administration were captured on court-approved wiretaps.

Another source said that contact between the Obama camp and the governor’s administration regarding the Senate seat began the Saturday before the Nov. 4 election, when Emanuel made a call to the cell phone of Harris. The conversation took place around the same time press reports surfaced about Emanuel being approached about taking the high-level White House post should Obama win.

Emanuel delivered a list of candidates who would be “acceptable” to Obama, the source said. On the list were Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett, Illinois Veterans Affairs director Tammy Duckworth, state Comptroller Dan Hynes and U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Chicago, the source said. All are Democrats.

Sometime after the election, Emanuel called Harris back to add the name of Democratic Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan to the approved list, the source said.

As I wrote this week, no one would be surprised to hear that Emanuel and Obama had enough interest in the latter’s replacement to get in contact with the man who would normally make that appointment, Governor Blagojevich. After all, the composition of the Senate matters a great deal to Obama, who needs to ensure that his agenda gets the most support possible in the next two years. Given the corruption in Illinois politics, it might make it even more important to get involved in the process early to avoid getting someone who would embarrass the administration at a later point in time, especially with Patrick Fitzgerald’s years-long probe into Illinois politics still ongoing.

However, Barack Obama and his team chose not to give that honest and common-sense explanation. Instead, they issued categorical denials that Obama and his staff had contacted Blagojevich or his staff about the succession. It’s a mystifying claim, and one that will apparently get proven false fairly easily. Now, instead of just saying that contact existed but that no one had tried making deals, they have thrown away their credibility on a very foolish point — which will lead to the conclusion that Team Obama has something very significant to hide.

Now it comes down to the Watergate question for both Emanuel and Obama: What did they know, and when did they know it? Did Emanuel’s conversations with Harris or anyone else involve discussions of quid pro quo? Team Obama will deny it, but they spent all of this week denying any conversations took place, and only the most gullible will believe denials from this point forward. The wiretaps will go to the grand jury, and we will see whether Emanuel got himself caught in Fitzgerald’s nets.

If he did discuss quid pro quo and didn’t report it to the feds, Emanuel may or may not have committed a crime, but Obama will have no choice but to fire him. And axing a Chief of Staff before even taking the oath of office does not lend much confidence in either the competence nor the honesty of the new President.

Update: Here’s what Obama said in his December 11th statement:

I had no contact with the governor’s office. I did not speak to the governor about these issues, that I know for certain. What I want to do is to gather all the facts about any staff contacts that may have taken place between the transition office and the governor’s office, and we’ll have those in the next few days and we’ll present them. But what I’m absolutely certain about is that our office had no involvement in any deal-making around my Senate seat. That, I’m absolutely certain of, and that would be a violation of everything this campaign has been about. That’s not how we do business.

So Obama said in one part that he himself hat no contact with the governor’s office or the governor regarding the appointment, which makes sense, because he’s got other issues to handle. He then claims that his office “had no involvement in any deal-making around my Senate seat.” If that’s true, then what was Emanuel discussing with Harris — and how did Blagojevich know that they wouldn’t give him anything but their appreciation? From the complaint, it doesn’t sound like an assumption Blagojevich made. (Hat tip: HA reader David M)

GM,It sounds like Clintonism all over again. BO said he or his office never had contact.He didn't specify Emanuel. But we all know Emanuel was talking with both BO and the gov. and BO knew.So even though it is a lie it is not technically a lie. It is the "Clintoneasque" play with words to make a lie look like it is not.Politics as usual.Of course the MSM is giving him a complete pass for the deceptive language.

By Jitendra Joshi in WashingtonDecember 15, 2008 08:00amBARACK Obama's chief of staff is under pressure over reported contacts with Illinois's corruption-tainted governor, who faces impeachment proceedings this week.

Rahm Emanuel, a combative congressman from Illinois who will serve as Obama's political gatekeeper in the White House, was reported to have been in touch with Governor Rod Blagojevich about Mr Obama's Senate seat.

The Chicago Tribune and New York Times did not suggest any wrongdoing by Mr Emanuel, citing sources as saying he had presented suggested names to take over the seat without offering any inducements to Mr Blagojevich.

But the reports could present a distraction to the president-elect, as the Republican Party released a new advertisement declaring that "questions remain" over Mr Obama's links to the disgraced governor.

The web ad by the Republican National Committee highlighted Mr Obama's past support for Mr Blagojevich and showed commentators questioning why the president-elect had not been more forthright in denouncing the Governor.

Mr Blagojevich has refused to resign after his arrest in an FBI investigation that accuses him of staggering corruption, including an attempt to sell Mr Obama's vacated Senate seat to the highest bidder.

Illinois lawmakers are expected to begin impeachment proceedings today in a hastily called special session, while state Attorney General Lisa Madigan wants the state supreme court to strip Mr Blagojevich of the bulk of his powers.

Ms Madigan noted speculation, reported by the Chicago Sun-Times, that Mr Blagojevich may now be set to resign as early as today or temporarily step aside to fight the corruption allegations.

Commenting on the reports about Emanuel, she told NBC television that it "doesn't appear from what I've heard so far that there is anything improper that has occurred."

Ms Madigan was among the names reportedly suggested by Mr Emanuel for the Governor to appoint as Mr Obama's senatorial replacement.

"One source confirmed that communications between Emanuel and the Blagojevich administration were captured on court-approved wire-taps," the Chicago Tribune said.

But wire-tap transcripts released by prosecutors suggest that Mr Blagojevich was not being offered anything beyond appreciation from the Obama camp, much to the Governor's foul-mouthed frustration.

Mr Obama has ordered his staff to divulge any contacts they may have had with Mr Blagojevich, while insisting he was "absolutely certain" that there had been no dealings on the alleged scheme to sell off the Senate seat.

I notice that I am about the only one that believes it was Obama that blew the whistle on the corrupt Gov, setting himself up to be the ethical hero of the century as he takes the oath.

It really is a no-brainer to me since he should be impeached if the facts turn out otherwise.

First, look at the interest in the MN recount here. It matters who becomes Senator, for every seat.

Who has the biggest interest in the Obama seat for continuity purposes? Obama.

Who has to work with the senators of his own party to get things done? The future Pres.

Who submitted a list of 'approved' candidates for the position??? Barack Obama.

Just having a list of approved applicants indicates that Obama believed he had a rightful and high place in the appointment decision process.

If all contact was done through his staff, it wasn't done randomly through his staff, like through the chef, housekeeper or valet car parker. It was through his Chief of Staff who was in CONSTANT contact with his boss and with the corrupt Gov.

If the corrupt Gov. Blag had demands, then who knew first? The person who had the greatest stake in the outcome, Barack Obama.

Everyone in power knows how to trade political favors and understands power brokering, but those who play the game smartest, hardest and best are most aware of the line that cannot be crossed. Obama fits the bill all the way, brokering deals with bill Richardson, Hillary, Daschle and who knows who else along the way. Really everyone he came in contact with in some way shape or form was offered something for what he wanted back, their support, their withdrawal, their money, etc. etc.

So Obama was keenly aware of exactly what was going on in the corrupt Gov's office and on his phone line, he is acutely aware of the limits of blatancy in horse trading and mutual back scratching, he was cut out of the process for not playing the game, and he is not exactly the type to give up easily and leave with his tail between his legs.

So Obama blew the whistle.

The result is that the appointment of a non-Obama-approved candidate was stopped in its tracks, the politician even and especially from his own party who wouldn't surrender his power had it taken from him along with his freedom, and the new kind of politics can ride into inauguration on a white horse, or mixed color horse as the case may be, as the hero of a new generation, and everyone in and around his new administration sees who is in charge as they contemplate their next four years of serving, leaking, backstabbing, selling, trading and self promoting.

"Anyone who relies solely on MSM outlets ... may not even know that Obama has, to this day, not authorized the state of Hawaii to release his Certificate of Live Birth -- the 'long form' -- to prove that he is a 'natural born citizen' (NBC), a Constitutional requirement of all presidents. Instead, We, the People, have online access to an Obama document known as a Certification of Live Birth, which, as Randall Hoven explains at American Thinker blog, is a computer-generated short form that is not even accepted by the Hawaii Department of Home Lands as adequate verification of Hawaiian identity. ... Further dimming the online document's Holy Grail aspects, it has been altered -- the certificate's number has been redacted -- which, according to a statement printed on the document, actually invalidates it. But that's not all. Back on Oct. 31, Hawaii's director of health, along with the registrar of Vital Statistics, released a statement verifying that the Hawaii's Department of Health has Obama's 'original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures.' Well, that's just great. But no matter how many times this statement from 'Hawaiian authorities' is cited as the NBC clincher, it doesn't prove a thing. It turns out, as Hoven reports, that Hawaii issues birth certificates even for babies born elsewhere, so simply having an original Hawaiian birth certificate 'on record' doesn't answer the key questions. Namely: What exactly does this original birth certificate say? And why doesn't Obama simply authorize the document's release and be done with the question? ... I think it is nothing less than good citizenship to seek to verify that Obama is a 'natural born citizen' since our elites, which include the major political parties and the MSM, failed to bring the matter to its extremely simple resolution long ago. But while important, this isn't just a story about whether we as Americans are right or wrong to ask our president-elect the question about his original birth certificate. It is about whether our president-elect is right or wrong not to answer it." --columnist Diana West

I notice that I am about the only one that believes it was Obama that blew the whistle on the corrupt Gov, setting himself up to be the ethical hero of the century as he takes the oath.**Then why the stonewalling from Obama and his camp? If he's the hero, he should be out front with it, not circling the wagons.**

"Anyone who relies solely on MSM outlets ... may not even know that Obama has, to this day, not authorized the state of Hawaii to release his Certificate of Live Birth -- the 'long form' -- to prove that he is a 'natural born citizen' (NBC), a Constitutional requirement of all presidents. Instead, We, the People, have online access to an Obama document known as a Certification of Live Birth, which, as Randall Hoven explains at American Thinker blog, is a computer-generated short form that is not even accepted by the Hawaii Department of Home Lands as adequate verification of Hawaiian identity. ... Further dimming the online document's Holy Grail aspects, it has been altered -- the certificate's number has been redacted -- which, according to a statement printed on the document, actually invalidates it. But that's not all. Back on Oct. 31, Hawaii's director of health, along with the registrar of Vital Statistics, released a statement verifying that the Hawaii's Department of Health has Obama's 'original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures.' Well, that's just great. But no matter how many times this statement from 'Hawaiian authorities' is cited as the NBC clincher, it doesn't prove a thing. It turns out, as Hoven reports, that Hawaii issues birth certificates even for babies born elsewhere, so simply having an original Hawaiian birth certificate 'on record' doesn't answer the key questions. Namely: What exactly does this original birth certificate say? And why doesn't Obama simply authorize the document's release and be done with the question? ... I think it is nothing less than good citizenship to seek to verify that Obama is a 'natural born citizen' since our elites, which include the major political parties and the MSM, failed to bring the matter to its extremely simple resolution long ago. But while important, this isn't just a story about whether we as Americans are right or wrong to ask our president-elect the question about his original birth certificate. It is about whether our president-elect is right or wrong not to answer it." --columnist Diana West

**Obama obviously had a passport to go to Indonesia as a child and Pakistan as a young man, meaning the US State Department found he was a US citizen long before he had any political connections, yes?**

Before You Start, Please Note:Minors under age 16 must apply in personAll children regardless of age, including newborns and infants, must have their own passportThere are special requirements for All Minors Ages 16 & 17

STEPS TO SUBMITTING A PASSPORT APPLICATION FOR A MINOR UNDER AGE 16:

Read and understand Steps 1 - 7 before leaving this page.

STEP 1: Complete and Submit Form DS-11: Application For A U.S. Passport

Complete Form DS-11: Application for a U.S. Passport. To submit Form DS-11, the minor:

Must apply in person with both parents/guardian(s)Must provide the additional documentation required by Form DS-11 (See Steps 2-7)Must not sign the application until instructed to do so by the Acceptance AgentMust provide his/her Social Security numberSTEP 2: Submit Evidence of U.S. Citizenship

The minor's evidence of U.S. citizenship must be submitted with Form DS-11. All documentation submitted as citizenship evidence will be returned to you. These documents will be delivered with your newly issued U.S. passport or in a separate mailing.

Primary Evidence of U.S. Citizenship (One of the following): Previously issued, undamaged U.S. Passport Certified birth certificate issued by the city, county or state* Consular Report of Birth Abroad or Certification of Birth Naturalization Certificate Certificate of Citizenship

*A certified birth certificate has a registrar's raised, embossed, impressed or multicolored seal, registrar’s signature, and the date the certificate was filed with the registrar's office, which must be within 1 year of your birth. Some short (abstract) versions of birth certificates may not be acceptable for passport purposes.

NOTE: If you do not have primary evidence of U.S. citizenship or your U.S. birth certificate does not meet the requirements, please see Secondary Evidence of U.S. Citizenship.

STEP 3: Submit Evidence of Relationship

Parent(s)/Guardian(s) must submit evidence of their relationship to the minor applicant.Evidence of Relationship (One of the following):Minor's certified U.S. birth certificate with both parents’ namesMinor's certified Foreign Birth Certificate with both parents’ names*Minor's Report of Birth Abroad with both parents’ namesAdoption Decree with adopting parents’ names*Court Order establishing custodyCourt Order establishing guardianship

*Foreign documents should be accompanied by an official English translation

NOTES:

Previous U.S. passports are not acceptable as evidence of relationshipEvidence of a legal name change must be submitted, if the name of a parent/guardian has changed since the original documents were issued (e.g. photocopy of a marriage certificate, etc.)STEP 4: Present Identification of Parent(s)/Guardian(s)

When applying for a minor under age 16, both parent(s)/guardian(s) must present acceptable identification at the time of application.

Primary Identification (One of the following): Previously issued, undamaged U.S. passport Naturalization Certificate Valid Driver's License Current Government Employee ID (city, state or federal) Current Military ID (military and dependents)

NOTE: If none of these items are available, please see Secondary Identification.

STEP 5: Provide Parental Consent

Both parents must provide consent authorizing passport issuance for a minor under age 16. See the scenarios below, and follow the instruction that best applies to your circumstance:

Both Parents MUST:

Appear in person with the minorSign Form DS-11 in front of an Acceptance Agent

One Parent MUST:

Appear in person with the minorSign Form DS-11 in front of an Acceptance AgentSubmit the second parents’ notarized Statement of Consent (Form DS-3053)

One Parent(with sole legal custody)MUST:

Appear in person with the minorSign Form DS-11 in front of an Acceptance AgentSubmit primary evidence of sole authority to apply for the child with one of the following:Minor’s certified U.S. or foreign birth certificate listing only the applying parentConsular Report of Birth Abroad (Form FS-240) or Certification of Birth Abroad (Form DS-1350) listing only the applying parentCourt order granting sole custody to the applying parent (unless child's travel is restricted by that order)Adoption decree (if applying parents is sole adopting parent)Court order specifically permitting applying parent's or guardian's travel with the childJudicial declaration of incompetence of non-applying parentDeath certificate of non-applying parentNOTE: If none of the above documentation is available, the applying parent must submit Form DS-3053 stating why the non-applying parent/guardian's consent cannot be obtained

A Third Party(in Loco Parentis applying on behalf of a minor under the age of 16)MUST:

Submit a notarized written statement or affidavit from both parents or guardians authorizing a third-party to apply for a passportWhen the statement of affidavit is from only one parent/guardian, the third-party must present evidence of sole custody of the authorizing parent/guardian.STEP 6: Pay the Applicable Fee

Please see Current Passport Fees and methods of payment.

STEP 7: Provide Two Passport Photos

We can help you submit clear and correctly exposed passport photos the first time - especially when applying for the U.S. Passport Card. See Quality Requirements for Passport Book & Passport Card Photographs to avoid photo processing delays.

Your Photographs Must Be:

IdenticalIn color2 x 2 inches in sizeTaken within the past 6 months, showing current appearanceFull face, front view with a plain white or off-white backgroundBetween 1 inch and 1 3/8 inches from the bottom of the chin to the top of the headTaken in normal street attire:Uniforms should not be worn in photographs except religious attire that is worn dailyDo not wear a hat or headgear that obscures the hair or hairlineIf you normally wear prescription glasses, a hearing device, wig or similar articles, they should be worn for your pictureDark glasses or nonprescription glasses with tinted lenses are not acceptable unless you need them for medical reasons (a medical certificate may be required)

NOTES:

Vending machine photos are not generally acceptableSee Digitized Passport Photos for information on acceptable digital photosProfessional photographers, see Guidelines for Producing High Quality Photographs for U.S. Travel Documents

Why the stories about Obama's birth certificate will never dieBarack Obama was, without question, born in the U.S., and he is eligible to be president, but experts on conspiracy theories say that won't ever matter to those who believe otherwise.

By Alex Koppelman

Dec. 05, 2008 |

Barack Obama can't be president: He wasn't really born in Hawaii, and the certification of live birth his campaign released is a forgery. He was born in Kenya. Or maybe Indonesia. Or, wait, maybe he was born in Hawaii -- but that doesn't matter, since he was also a British citizen at birth because of his father, and you can't be a "natural-born citizen" in that case. (But then, maybe his "father" wasn't really his father; maybe his real dad was an obscure communist poet. Or Malcolm X.)

You might think these rumors would have died off after Obama produced proof in June that he was, in fact, born in Hawaii to an American citizen, his mother, Ann, or after Hawaii state officials confirmed in October that he was born there. You might think the rumors would have died off after he was elected by a comfortable margin. Instead, they've intensified. There have been paid advertisements in the Chicago Tribune questioning the president-elect's birth certificate and eligibility, and one group is raising money to run a similar ad on television. The right-wing Web site WorldNetDaily has been reporting on the issue almost nonstop. Numerous plaintiffs have filed lawsuits in various states. And Friday, the Supreme Court's nine justices will decide whether they want to hear one of those suits, which also contends that John McCain, born in the former Panama Canal Zone, does not meet the Constitution's requirements to hold the presidency. (see following article)

The people hoping this is a sign the court will agree with them and stop Obama from becoming president are almost certain to be let down. The fact that the case has gone to conference doesn't mean anything about its merits -- the court will also be deciding whether to take up a number of other cases, and the chances that the suit will actually be heard is exceedingly small. Eugene Volokh, a law professor at UCLA, has calculated that over the past eight years the court has considered in conference 842 cases that sought a stay. Only 60 of them were actually heard. Seven hundred and eighty-two were denied.

But that doesn't matter. The faux controversy isn't going to go away soon. Yes, Obama was born in Hawaii, and yes, he is eligible to be president. But according to several experts in conspiracy theories, and in the psychology of people who believe in conspiracy theories, there's little chance those people who think Obama is barred from the presidency will ever be convinced otherwise. "There's no amount of evidence or data that will change somebody's mind," says Michael Shermer, who is the publisher of Skeptic magazine and a columnist for Scientific American, and who holds an undergraduate and a master's degree in psychology. "The more data you present a person, the more they doubt it ... Once you're committed, especially behaviorally committed or financially committed, the more impossible it becomes to change your mind."

Any inconvenient facts are irrelevant. People who believe in a conspiracy theory "develop a selective perception, their mind refuses to accept contrary evidence," Chip Berlet, a senior analyst with Political Research Associates who studies such theories, says. "As soon as you criticize a conspiracy theory, you become part of the conspiracy."

Evan Harrington, a social psychologist who is an associate professor at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology, agrees. "One of the tendencies of the conspiracy notion, the whole appeal, is that a lot of the information the believer has is secret or special," Harrington says. "The real evidence is out there, [and] you can give them all this evidence, but they'll have convenient ways to discredit [it]."

Whatever can't be ignored can be twisted to fit into the narrative; every new disclosure of something that should, by rights, end the controversy only opens up new questions, identifies new plotters. Perhaps the most common argument of those questioning Obama's eligibility is that he should just release his full, original birth certificate, rather than the shorter certification, which is a copy. His failure to do so only proves there is reason to be suspicious, they say, and if the document was released, the issue would go away. But that's unlikely. It was, after all, the Obama campaign's release of the certification this summer that stoked the fever of conspiracy mongers.

For believers, it works like this: So what if Dr. Chiyome Fukino, the director of Hawaii's Department of Health, released a statement saying she has verified that the state has the original birth certificate on record? So what if she said separately that the certification looks identical to one she was issued for her own Hawaii birth certificate? Why didn't her statement specify Obama's birthplace? So what if a Hawaii Health Department spokeswoman later clarified that Fukino meant that Obama was born in Hawaii? So what if researchers for FactCheck.org actually saw the physical copy of the certification and debunked much of the key "evidence" supposedly proving that the image posted online is a forgery? They're not really independent. They're funded by the Annenberg Public Policy Center, and Obama once (with Bill Ayers, no less) ran an entirely unrelated program that happened to be paid for with money donated by Walter Annenberg. And on and on and on.

If the long-form birth certificate were released, with its unequivocal identification of Hawaii as Obama's place of birth, the cycle would almost certainly continue. Rush Limbaugh already suggested that Obama's trip to Hawaii to see his ailing grandmother, who died not long after, was somehow connected to the controversy. Others, like Michael Savage, followed Limbaugh's lead, saying Obama was going to Hawaii to alter the record.

Not surprisingly, almost all of the people who've been most prominent in pushing this story have a history of conspiracist thought. There's Jerome Corsi, who's best known as the co-author of the book that launched the Swift boat vets; he's a chief proponent of the claim that the government is secretly planning to form a "North American Union" with Canada and Mexico. Philip Berg, who filed the lawsuit that had until now drawn the most public attention, is a 9/11 Truther. Andy Martin, who's credited with starting the myth that Obama is a Muslim and has been intimately involved in the birth certificate mess as well, was denied admission to the Illinois bar because of a psychiatric evaluation that showed he had "moderately severe character defect manifested by well-documented ideation with a paranoid flavor and a grandiose character." He also has a long history of anti-Semitism. Robert Schulz, who's responsible for the ads in the Tribune, is a fairly notorious tax protester. In 2007, a federal judge ordered Schulz to shutter his Web site because he and his organization were, in the words of the Justice Department's Tax Division, using the site to promote "a nationwide tax-fraud scheme."

We could be dealing with the repercussions of the tangled web these people have woven for years after Obama is inaugurated. We already have some hints of what's to come. Gary Kreep, who heads the United States Justice Foundation and is representing Alan Keyes in one of the lawsuits over the president-elect's eligibility, has said his group will file suit to challenge each and every one of Obama's actions as president.

He may well inspire others. There are a surprising number of people out there -- tax protesters, for instance -- who rely on similarly creative legal thinking based on conspiracy theories for their defense. So don't be too surprised if, sometime after Jan. 20, defendants in federal trials suddenly claim they can't be prosecuted. If Obama isn't really president, then laws he signs have no effect, Department of Justice prosecutors have no authority and judges he appoints aren't legally judges. Anyone who tells you otherwise is just part of the conspiracy.

-- By Alex Koppelman

What the heck, what about McCain?McCain's birthplace prompts queries about whether that rules him outBy Carl HulseThursday, February 28, 2008

WASHINGTON: The question has nagged at the parents of Americans born outside the continental United States for generations: Dare their children aspire to grow up and become president? In the case of Senator John McCain of Arizona, the issue is becoming more than a matter of parental daydreaming.

McCain's likely nomination as the Republican candidate for president and the happenstance of his birth in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936 are reviving a musty debate that has surfaced periodically since the founders first set quill to parchment and declared that only a "natural-born citizen" can hold the nation's highest office.

Almost since those words were written in 1787 with scant explanation, their precise meaning has been the stuff of confusion, law school review articles, whisper campaigns and civics class debates over whether only those delivered on American soil can be truly natural born. To date, no American to take the presidential oath has had an official birthplace outside the 50 states.

"There are powerful arguments that Senator McCain or anyone else in this position is constitutionally qualified, but there is certainly no precedent," said Sarah Duggin, an associate professor of law at Catholic University who has studied the issue extensively. "It is not a slam-dunk situation."

McCain was born on a military installation in the Canal Zone, where his mother and father, a navy officer, were stationed. His campaign advisers say they are comfortable that McCain meets the requirement and note that the question was researched for his first presidential bid in 1999 and reviewed again this time around.

But given mounting interest, the campaign recently asked Theodore Olson, a former solicitor general now advising McCain, to prepare a detailed legal analysis. "I don't have much doubt about it," said Olson, who added, though, that he still needed to finish his research.

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and one of McCain's closest allies, said it would be incomprehensible to him if the son of a military member born in a military station could not run for president.

"He was posted there on orders from the United States government," Graham said of McCain's father. "If that becomes a problem, we need to tell every military family that your kid can't be president if they take an overseas assignment."

The phrase "natural born" was in early drafts of the Constitution. Scholars say notes of the Constitutional Convention give away little of the intent of the framers. Its origin may be traced to a letter from John Jay to George Washington, with Jay suggesting that to prevent foreigners from becoming commander in chief, the Constitution needed to "declare expressly" that only a natural-born citizen could be president.

Duggin and others who have explored the arcane subject in depth say legal argument and basic fairness may indeed be on the side of McCain, a longtime member of Congress from Arizona. But multiple experts and scholarly reviews say the issue has never been definitively resolved by either Congress or the Supreme Court.

Duggin favors a constitutional amendment to settle the matter. Others have called on Congress to guarantee that Americans born outside the national boundaries can legitimately see themselves as potential contenders for the Oval Office.

"They ought to have the same rights," said Don Nickles, a former Republican senator from Oklahoma who in 2004 introduced legislation that would have established that children born abroad to American citizens could harbor presidential ambitions without a legal cloud over their hopes. "There is some ambiguity because there has never been a court case on what 'natural-born citizen' means."

McCain's situation is different from those of the current governors of California and Michigan, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jennifer Granholm, who were born in other countries and were first citizens of those nations, rendering them naturalized Americans ineligible under current interpretations. The conflict that could conceivably ensnare McCain goes more to the interpretation of "natural born" when weighed against intent and decades of immigration law.

McCain is not the first person to find himself in these circumstances. The last Arizona Republican to be a presidential nominee, Barry Goldwater, faced the issue. He was born in the Arizona territory in 1909, three years before it became a state. But Goldwater did not win, and the view at the time was that since he was born in a continental territory that later became a state, he probably met the standard.

It also surfaced in the 1968 candidacy of George Romney, who was born in Mexico, but again was not tested. The former Connecticut politician Lowell Weicker Jr., born in Paris, sought a legal analysis when considering the presidency, an aide said, and was assured he was eligible. Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. was once viewed as a potential successor to his father, but was seen by some as ineligible since he had been born on Campobello Island in Canada. The 21st president, Chester Arthur, whose birthplace is Vermont, was rumored to have actually been born in Canada, prompting some to question his eligibility.

Quickly recognizing confusion over the evolving nature of citizenship, the First Congress in 1790 passed a measure that did define children of citizens "born beyond the sea, or out of the limits of the United States to be natural born." But that law is still seen as potentially unconstitutional and was overtaken by subsequent legislation that omitted the "natural-born" phrase.

McCain's citizenship was established by statutes covering the offspring of Americans abroad and laws specific to the Canal Zone as Congress realized that Americans would be living and working in the area for extended periods. But whether he qualifies as natural-born has been a topic of Internet buzz for months, with some declaring him ineligible while others assert that he meets all the basic constitutional qualifications  a natural-born citizen at least 35 years of age with 14 years of residence.

"I don't think he has any problem whatsoever," said Nickles, a McCain supporter. "But I wouldn't be a bit surprised if somebody is going to try to make an issue out of it. If it goes to court, I think he will win."

Lawyers who have examined the topic say there is not just confusion about the provision itself, but uncertainty about who would have the legal standing to challenge a candidate on such grounds, what form a challenge could take and whether it would have to wait until after the election or could be made at any time.

In a paper written 20 years ago for the Yale Law Journal on the natural-born enigma, Jill Pryor, now a lawyer in Atlanta, said that any legal challenge to a presidential candidate born outside national boundaries would be "unpredictable and unsatisfactory."

"If I were on the Supreme Court, I would decide for John McCain," Pryor said in a recent interview. "But it is certainly not a frivolous issue."

I sincerely hope that BO was born in HI. I think it would be an utter tragedy and disaster if it turns out that he was not and therefor ineligible to serve.

"Perhaps the most common argument of those questioning Obama's eligibility is that he should just release his full, original birth certificate, rather than the shorter certification, which is a copy. His failure to do so only proves there is reason to be suspicious, they say, and if the document was released, the issue would go away. But that's unlikely. It was, after all, the Obama campaign's release of the certification this summer that stoked the fever of conspiracy mongers."

This is specious reasoning for reasons obvious to the general IQ level of this forum. Count me amongs those who can't think of a good reason not to release the original.

I always use the "if the shoe was on the other foot" test. If a conservative Republican had such a hard to document via primary sources, single parent, international childhood, do you think those on the left would be raising a hue and cry. Don't forget the claims of Palin's fake pregnancy. . . .

Dude, what cave were you in? All the moonbats were speculating when Palin first came on the scene that Palin's son was in fact her daughter's child and that Palin faked the pregnancy to shield her daughter or somesuch.

Anyway, fair and reasonable man that SBM is, of course he gets the absurdity of the Palin baby nonsense-- what remains IMHO is that there is no good reason that I can see for all of us not to see the original certificate. Period.

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Barack Obama has garnered praise from center to right — and has highly irritated the left — with the centrism of his major appointments. Because Obama's own beliefs remain largely opaque, his appointments have led to the conclusion that he intends to govern from the center.

Obama the centrist? I'm not so sure. Take the foreign policy team: Hillary Clinton, James Jones and Bush holdover Robert Gates. As centrist as you can get. But the choice was far less ideological than practical. Obama has no intention of being a foreign policy president. Unlike, say, Nixon or Reagan, he does not have aspirations abroad. He simply wants quiet on his eastern and western fronts so that he can proceed with what he really cares about — his domestic agenda.

Similarly his senior economic team, the brilliant trio of Tim Geithner, Larry Summers and Paul Volcker: centrist, experienced and mainstream. But their principal task is to stabilize the financial system, a highly pragmatic task in which Obama has no particular ideological stake.

A functioning financial system is a necessary condition for a successful Obama presidency. As in foreign policy, Obama wants experts and veterans to manage and pacify universes in which he has little experience and less personal commitment. Their job is to keep credit flowing and the world at bay so that Obama can address his real ambition: to effect a domestic transformation as grand and ambitious as Franklin Roosevelt's.

As Obama revealingly said just last week, "This painful crisis also provides us with an opportunity to transform our economy to improve the lives of ordinary people." Transformation is his mission. Crisis provides the opportunity. The election provides him the power.

The deepening recession creates the opportunity for federal intervention and government experimentation on a scale unseen since the New Deal. A Republican administration has already done the ideological groundwork with its unprecedented intervention, culminating in the forced partial nationalization of nine of the largest banks, the kind of stuff that happens in Peronist Argentina with a gun on the table. Additionally, Henry Paulson's invention of the number $700 billion forever altered our perception of imaginable government expenditure. Twenty billion more for Citigroup? Lunch money.

Moreover, no one in Congress even pretends that spending should be pay as you go (i.e., new expenditures balanced by higher taxes or lower spending), as the Democrats disingenuously promised when they took over Congress last year. Even some conservative economists are urging stimulus (although structured far differently from Democratic proposals). And public opinion, demanding action, will buy any stimulus package of any size. The result: undreamed-of amounts of money at Obama's disposal.

To meet the opportunity, Obama has the political power that comes from a smashing electoral victory. It not only gave him a personal mandate. It increased Democratic majorities in both houses, thereby demonstrating coattails and giving him clout. And by running on nothing much more than change and (often contradictory) hopes, he has given himself enormous freedom of action.

Obama was quite serious when he said he was going to change the world. And now he has a national crisis, a personal mandate, a pliant Congress, a desperate public — and, at his disposal, the greatest pot of money in galactic history. (I include here the extrasolar planets.)

It begins with a near $1 trillion stimulus package. This is where Obama will show himself ideologically. It is his one great opportunity to plant the seeds for everything he cares about: a new green economy, universal health care, a labor resurgence, government as benevolent private-sector "partner." The first hint came yesterday, when Obama claimed, "If we want to overcome our economic challenges, we must also finally address our health care challenge" — the perfect non sequitur that gives carte blanche to whatever health-care reform and spending the Obama team dreams up. It is the community organizer's ultimate dream.

Ironically, when the economy tanked in mid-September, it was assumed that both presidential candidates could simply forget about their domestic agendas because with $700 billion drained by financial system rescues, not a penny would be left to spend on anything else.

On the contrary. With the country clamoring for action and with all psychological barriers to government intervention obliterated (by the conservative party, no less), the stage is set for a young, ambitious, supremely confident president — who sees himself as a world-historical figure before even having been sworn in — to begin a restructuring of the American economy and the forging of a new relationship between government and people.

Don't be fooled by Bob Gates staying on. Obama didn't get elected to manage Afghanistan. He intends to transform America. And he has the money, the mandate and the moxie to go for it.

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Here we go again. The Clintons grabbing for the spotlight and self serving spin. Every move she makes she will have her spin team out there telling what a great job she is doing fixing the world for us. Oh well. Does State really need to get in on economic issues? She is already trying to ustage BO. I thought BO was for change. We still are going to hear endless grifter propaganda.

***Hillary Clinton plans a more powerful State Dept: NY Times Hillary Rodham Clinton plans to build a more muscular US State Department, with a bigger budget, high-profile special envoys dispatched to trouble spots and an expanded role in dealing with the global economic crisis, the New York Times reported Tuesday.

The Times cited an unnamed Hillary Clinton adviser as saying her push for a more vigorous economic team stems from her belief that the State Department needs to play a part in the recovery from the global financial crisis, while economic issues also are at the heart of key diplomatic relationships, notably with China.

The former first lady also is reportedly likely to name several high-powered envoys to world hotspots.

The daily reported that Clinton and Obama have not yet settled on specific envoys or missions, although the name of veteran diplomat Dennis Ross has come up as a possible Middle East envoy, along with diplomatic trouble-shooter Richard Holbrooke and Martin Indyk, a former United States ambassador to Israel.

The Times wrote that the New York senator -- President-elect Barack Obama's pick for Secretary of State -- is recruiting Jacob Lew, the budget director under her husband former president Bill Clinton -- to be one of her two deputies. Lew would be tasked with handling economic matters, the report said.

Another Bill Clinton aide, former deputy national security adviser James Steinberg is to be Hillary Clinton's other chief lieutenant, subject to Senate confirmation.***

November 4th, 2008 will, undoubtedly go down in world history as epoch making.

It was a day that signposted the final internment of the age-long divisive philosophy that held one race superior to another (apology to the legend, Bob Marley); it was a day the entire world came together, irrespective of creed and religion, to recite Dune Dimitis (however, not with long faces) for the monster of racial discrimination that had for long defined the political climate of America but now chased away; it was the day Barack Hussein Obama won in landslide, the U.S Presidential election.

The U.S. Presidential Election has come and gone but the echoes of it continue to reverberate in every nook and cranny of Africa especially in Kenya where Obama traces his patrilineal descent from. The euphoria of Obama's victory will for long continue its ripples in the Negroid race of Africa.

However, the point is worth making that for the Americans, the euphoria of joy sweeping through its entire nation is understandable: That, at last, someone who has a clear vision and a good grasp of the issues that need to be addressed to restore U.S. lost glory, consequent upon the lacklustre performance of the out-going president, was not held back from realizing that ambition by prejudices. But for Africans, what other reason beside the sentimental consideration that a fellow brother African now becomes President of U.S., can we adduce to bedrocks our own euphoria at the election of Obama?

If one may ask, what business do African countries, together with their stinking leaders, have in rejoicing over Obama's victory at the U.S. poll when we know in our hearts of hearts that we will never allow the kind of system that has produced Obama in U.S. election to be replicated in our own land?

Or, are we under a delusion that, with Obama's presidency, African countries shall wake up one morning, like the fabled Alice in Wonderland, and find all the good things of life in sufficiency for all as obtain in the western world, even while our leaders and people continue in their culture of greed, corruption, ethnic hostilities and all such practices antithetical to the dictate of modern civilization?

It bears repeating to state here that it borders on crass hypocrisy for African countries such as Zambia, Ivory Coast, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Nigeria, et al, to rejoice at Obama's victory even when they are all still involved in various acts of prejudices, this time around, not even against a coloured person but against their own black brothers.

We have witnessed instances in Zambia where the first post independent Kenneth Kaunda had his citizenship withdrawn on the allegation that his ancestry is somewhere in another African country! Similar acts have played out in Ivory Coast and Nigeria (Shugaba's case). The xenophobic hostilities in South Africa and Zimbabwe are all still fresh in our memories. Africans must be reminded not to expect too much from the presidency of Obama any more than they expected from the presidency of Bill Clinton.

Our only obvious claim to Obama is his blood ties to his Kenyan father. But we must call to memory that, for all the time the elder Obama lived, his conduct in juxtaposition to what Obama Jr. is and stands for today shows, in very lucid details, those sad commentaries of a pure bred African man. The elder Obama came to America and deceitfully led Obama's mother into marriage, even while he was already married to another Kenya woman back home.

He was to later abandon Obama's mother and returned to Kenya, leaving young Obama in the care of his maternal grandparents in America. It was recorded that he died drunk-driving. Should Obama's father were to be alive, one imagines that he too may be rejoicing just like the other African leaders are hypocritically doing.

We must stop deceiving ourselves. It is high time we told ourselves a few home truths. Whatever Obama is today or stands for, he owes it all to the American society.

If he were to be brought up in Kenya, his fatherland, with all his seeming immeasurable grace of intelligence, he would have ended up, at best, as a very brilliant but frustrated university don holed up somewhere in one of our glorified secondary schools, called university, like many other frustrated Obamas in our African society today. The American society that shaped Obama to become what he is to day places a higher premium of kinship of ideas over and above that of blood.

That explains the acceptance of Obama's candidature across the racial divides. If Obama were not of the rare breed of mankind (who recreates themselves independent of genetic force), he would not even be identifying his African root. It is only for Obama's high sense of humility and decency that he does so and I commend him for it. Africans must be reminded that as we cheer Obama's victory, we must cast away that extra baggage of hypocrisy and begin to reflect on the need for us to home-grow a system similar to what sustains in the U.S. that has made possible the Obama phenomenon.

The world today is ruled by ideas. It is not enough for us bank on blood kinship to Obama and think that alone will be the open sesame to our El Dorado.

In today's modern world, kinship of ideas, as aforesaid, rather than of blood or ethnicity is one of the driving force of attraction. In doing so, we must remind ourselves that until we jettison that negative attitude that encourages subjugation of fellow man rather than our environment which is what the white man has effectively achieved, we shall continue in our collective grope.

Life At New Animal Farm Won’t Be All That BadPosted By Victor Davis Hanson On December 27, 2008 @ 3:31 pm In Uncategorized | 18 Comments

By July, we will come to feel that 2009 will be one of the most upbeat years in our history, as what used to be the news media? begins to get behind America and report on all the mysteriously wonderful things that are suddenly taking place.

All the campaign talk of the Great Depression, a Vietnam-like war, and our shredded Constitution will now thankfully subside as the Obama administration assumes office and solves problems with conciliation, dialogue, and multilateral wisdom, rather than shrillness, unilateralism, preemption, and my-way-or-the-highway dogmatism. We will hear that by historical levels unemployment is still not that bad, that GDP growth is not historically all that low, and that deficits, inflation, interest rates, and housing starts are all within manageable parameters. “Depression” will transmogrify into “recession” which in turn by July will be a “downturn” and by year next an “upswing” on its way to boom times.

Indeed, almost supernaturally crises will be solved with the departure of the hated Bush: no more flooding streets from cracked water mains that were a result of a President’s neglect of infrastructure, and no more spontaneous crashes of Mississippi River bridges due to diversions of critical federal aid from cash-strapped states to Iraq. And when the temperatures rise or drop, the wind howls, the clouds burst forth or go away, the snow melts or piles up, it will be, well, nature that caused the havoc, not the current occupant of the White House who failed to sign Kyoto.

As we watch the innocent die from natural mayhem, it will be due to the breakdown of local responders who now suddenly kill people, not federal inaction—except perhaps for an occasional few Bush federal holdovers that have not yet been rooted out. Human nature, of course, now will be seen more culpable, more selfish, as in needlessly resisting wise and caring federal interventions, rather than being inherently noble but shunned by an uncaring Washington. Yes, when dikes collapse and planes collide on crowed run-ways, it will be due to a cruel and unpredictable nature, or intrinsic design flaws, or improper local use and maintenance, or the past President’s nefarious legacy, not current government policies. (But if you still must bash the government, it will be wise to do it in 1950s style of inattentive state and local officials, prone to regional and tribal prejudices, blocking the infinite wisdom of a caring federal government.)

Some military action abroad could be necessary—and necessarily reported on as measured and reluctant, rather than cowboyish and gratuitous. European whining will be a result of miscommunications or the Euros’ unfair caricatures of Americans, not Bush’s alienation of allies. If radical Islam strikes, it will be, well, radical again and sometimes even dangerous, not a figment of neocon pipe dreams. If an administration official quits, goes on 60 Minutes, and writes a nasty tell-all book about Obama’s insensitivity and his government’s directionless ennui, he will be a heretic, a whiner, a turncoat, not a truth teller or brave maverick who blew the whistle in need of a bestseller hyped from NPR to the New York Times. We will come again to hate the filibuster, obstructionist Congressional policies, and the occasional loud-mouthed Senator who voices slurs against our nation in unpatriotic fashion.

Those around Barack Obama understand that precisely those measures most derided during the campaign—wiretaps, the interrogation of prisoners in Guantanamo, the decimation of al Qaida members in Iraq and Afghanistan, overseas detentions—probably account likewise most for the absence of another 9/11-like attack. In other words, as the Obamians privately ignore the media hype about flushed Korans and hundreds of innocents caught in the cauldron of war and unfairly detained, and instead examine the sort of killers who are presently in Guantanamo, the type of intelligence gathering that led to prevention of dozens of planned attacks since 9/11, and those who turned up and were killed or arrested in Iraq and Afghanistan, they will realize how dicey it will be to follow through with campaign rhetoric about Bush, Inc. torching the Bill of Rights, fighting made-up enemies abroad, and generally alienating our allies.

So all that will change for now will be the sudden absence of shrill complaints that we live in an America without a Constitution. Static, same-old, same-old government policy will, of course, be said to have altered radically (”hoped and changed”), but it will also be refashioned in the media as “sober” and “judicious”, as the administration moves “in circumspect fashion” to probe and explore “complex” and often “paradoxical” matters of national security that “indeed at the end of the day have no easy answers”.

Expect much of the same on the economic front. For all the campaign hysteria about greedy Bushites who destroyed the economy, Obama realizes that in fact the seeds of the current financial weeds were sown years ago, and watered and fertilized by an array of both Democratic and Republican facilitators in Congress and hacks in government-affiliated mortgage sinecures. So expect the bailouts to continue. We will see Wall Street in about 24 hours after January 20 transmogrified from Gordon Gecko’s habitat into a sort of the old Robert Rubin/Warren Buffet-like necessary institution about which a Sen. Schumer or Chris Dodd can offer invaluable advice and consultation.

Socially, we will get a mix of Maya Angelou, Oprah, and Rick Warren, a rich diversity of therapeutics that appeals to everyone’s popular feel-my-pain tastes. Rev. Wrights and Father Plegers are “that was then, this is now” has-beens (not that they and their Blago-ilk with a memoir or wierd disclosure won’t try to crash the party from time to time), replaced by the bromides of the Purpose-Driven Life. The Left will once again see the U.S. as the last, best hope for mankind, a flawed, often errant nation that nevertheless in its heart always showed the world what was right in the end. “Diversity” and “progressive” themes will replace Bush’s hokey old-time patriotism, as we return to a more nuanced and sophisticated love of country that at last “came home.”

In other words, one can also at last enjoy that nice wood-floored study, tastefully granite-countered kitchen, with plenty of stainless steel appliances, in a mostly un-diverse neighborhood, still send your kids to a mostly predetermined racially-appropriate school, and still make a pretty good salary, drive a comfortably large car (though please—preferably a Volvo or Mercedes SUV rather than a Tahoe or Yukon), and feel like you are out there on the barricades of radical environmental, cultural, and political change (and hope too!).

Al Gore will be courted, get an occasional photo-op head-pat—but when he gets too loud quietly sent back upstairs to the closet. Ditto the uncouth Sharpton and Jackson, snapping pit bulls muzzled and dispatched to the kennels. Jimmy Carter will once again be wierd old jet-setting Jimmy Carter, a meddler, a spoiler, a PR junkie on the verge of senility rather than the principled Nobel laureate of the Carter Center.

Those inside the big house change, the commandments on the barn wall subtly are crossed out and updated, but the farm for us animals stays about the same.

______________

? I say used to be the news media, since when they report good news about the Divine Obama we have no idea whether it’s encomium or fact; and if they are ever slightly negative, we don’t know whether the complaint derives from His real error or merely that they are stung by past criticism and ostensibly trying to be periodically balanced. In short, the age of Murrow is over—and the divine era of Augustus with his Livy and Dio is upon us.

Barack Hussein Obama was sworn in as the 44th president of the United States on Tuesday. It was an historic day — not because of Obama’s race or policies, but because this was the 44th time that a peaceful transition of power took place in American history. If you will except the Civil War, when the transition was peaceful but nothing else was, that is an extraordinary record; and every time the United States ends one presidency and begins another one, it is an extraordinary event.

The question is whether Obama’s presidency will be historic, mediocre or disastrous. Every administration begins with tremendous support and great hopes. Most lose support and disappoint many hopes. It is impossible to know at the beginning what the end will bring. More than most presidents, Obama begins with a huge pool of support. Part of this derives from his personality. Part of it derives from the fact that he has a unique skill in allowing people to believe readily that he supports their views, when in reality, he has kept his commitment to a minimum. Part of it derives from the fact that between the economic crisis and the wars in the Islamic world, there is a deep pessimism in the United States that creates tremendous enthusiasm for anyone who holds open the promise of solutions.

Obama has become president at one of those moments when what went before makes what comes after appear delightful for many people. Many people have compared Obama to Franklin Roosevelt. To us, Obama is more similar to Ronald Reagan. Reagan took over from Jimmy Carter at a time when the economy was in terrible shape and when the Iran hostage crisis and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan had driven the country into what Carter called a deep “malaise.”

While Reagan had many bitter opponents, his chief virtue was that he was not drowning in pessimism and seemed to know what he would do. His followers saw him as endorsing a wide array of ideological issues, but his presidency turned out to be far more complex and nuanced than that. Many of his supporters, particularly on the Christian right, were quite disappointed in him in the end because he never drove the issues they thought he would drive.

Reagan’s theme was not “change,” but “morning in America” — equally vague, but it spoke to the moment. Reagan was called “the great communicator” for his ability to hold his coalition together in spite of the inevitable setbacks and scandals that every administration has. Ultimately that was his skill, and it was not a trivial one to have. Reagan’s presidency is viewed, even by those who were critics at the time, as successful because he had a singular virtue: He could hold his coalition together as he followed a singularly pragmatic path.

What is interesting about Obama is that he won with a much smaller percentage of the vote than Reagan did, but at this moment, his popularity is higher than it was on Election Day — dramatically so. Reagan’s rose too, but not like this. It will be interesting to see if that gives Obama greater strength or more room to fall.

It is also interesting to remember that Carter was not popular internationally. The Europeans had serious problems with him, and the German chancellor treated him with public contempt. The Islamic world treated him with particular contempt — the Iranians for obvious reasons and the Arabs for not stopping Ayatollah Khomeini. Reagan was actually greeted by many in the world as a vast relief after Carter’s moralizing and bumbling. Very quickly, America’s allies were disabused of their post-Carter fantasies. We strongly suspect that this will be case with Obama as well. Their problem is with America and not a particular president. Reagan was quickly as despised as Carter. It is hard to be as despised internationally as George W. Bush was, but then few thought that Reagan could fall in international esteem to Carter’s levels.

It is useful to recall that Carter cared a great deal about what the international community cared, and he lost respect. Reagan didn’t care a bit about the international community and lost respect. Caring didn’t really matter. But Obama does start out with quite a cushion.

I am proud of and excited by the fact that we have inaugurated the first black president of the United States. He wasn't my first choice, but he is nonetheless my president. And if ever there were a wonderful consolation prize in politics, shattering the race barrier in the White House is surely it.

Conservatives who try too hard to belittle the importance of this milestone are mistaken on several fronts. First, this is simply a wonderful—and wonderfully American—story. Any political movement that is joyless about what this represents risks succumbing to bitter political crankery.

For instance, you will not soon see a German chancellor of Turkish descent. Nor will a child of North African immigrants soon take the reins of power in France. It will be a long time before a Pakistani or Indian last name appears on the mailbox at 10 Downing St. And yet these countries bubble over with haughty finger-waggers eager to lecture backward and provincial America about race and tolerance. Why not enjoy rubbing Barack Obama in their faces?

Of course, there's a partisan angle to Obama's presidency—he is head of the Democratic Party, after all—but his success comes on the heels of a bipartisan racial success story. For instance, President Bush appointed the first African-American secretaries of state.

As Obama loves to observe, America is more indivisible and united than many would have us think. "We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the Stars and Stripes, all of us defending the United States of America," he proclaimed in his careermaking keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic convention.

It only follows that George Bush's America is also Barack Obama's America, and vice versa. That's an important lesson not only for foreign observers but for domestic partisans.

More important, opponents of racial quotas and other champions of colorblindness on the right should be popping champagne nearly as much as racial liberals are. Yes, yes, Obama's a passionate defender of affirmative action and the like, but the symbolism of his presidency cannot be contained within narrow liberal agendas.

"There is an entire generation that will grow up taking for granted that the highest office in the land is filled by an African-American," he told the Washington Post last week. "I mean, that's a radical thing. It changes how black children look at themselves. It also changes how white children look at black children. And I wouldn't underestimate the force of that."

Neither would I. The media understandably, if tediously, focus on how Obama's presidency is a deathblow to the legacy of official discrimination and racism. True enough. But the fact that a black man can become president of the United States may also be transgressive to all sorts of more relevant racial orthodoxies on the left and in the black community.

Obama's personal example is only part of the equation. He has voiced an admirable disdain for the notion that academic excellence is nothing more than "acting white." His famous Father's Day speech in 2008 showed that Obama was willing to lend his voice to the effort to fight black illegitimacy and absentee fatherhood.

This puts Obama behind the two most important ingredients for black success, at least according to most conservatives: a rededication to the importance of education at an individual level, and the restoration of the black nuclear family.

At a more political level, a black president surely undermines the argument that American racism is so endemic that a system of racial quotas must remain a permanent fixture of the political and legal landscape.

Obama is most frequently compared to Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt. But he also has compared himself to Ronald Reagan, saying he'd like to be a similarly transformative leader, albeit from a different ideological perspective. Only time will tell how successful he will be on that front.

But the analogy may be apt in ways that he and his supporters may not fully appreciate. By hastening the end of the Cold War, Reagan took away the defining cause of the conservative movement. The right had other issues, to be sure. But anti-communism was the coalitional glue. And while principled conservatives were happy to trade a live campaign issue for a dead Soviet Union, the damage to conservative cohesion was real.

If Obama lives up to the dreams of his supporters in writing a new, post-racial chapter for America, he will have at once done more for America than any Democratic president in generations. But he also will have cut the knot holding much of the left together. As an American and as a conservative, I certainly hope that's the case. He's already made a good start of it just by getting elected.

***President Barack Obama, seeking to sell his stimulus package to the public, promoted plans to build up clean-energy industries, expand health-insurance coverage and boost security at U.S. ports as part of the broader effort to jump-start the sputtering U.S. economy.

“If we do not act boldly and swiftly, a bad situation could become dramatically worse,” Obama said today in his first weekly radio and video address as president.

The administration released a report today outlining some of Obama’s priorities for the two-year recovery package. They include loan guarantees and other support to open up credit for renewable-energy investors, providing health insurance coverage to almost 8.5 million people who’ve lost jobs and enhancing security at 90 ports.***

I don't get the logic. How is providing health insurance going to jump start the economy?How is beefing security at ports goint to jump start the economy?How is renewable energy going to jump start the economy? How are loan gaurantees going to jump start the economy?And how is putting on hold US offshore drilling going to stimulate the economy?

The rhetoric just doesn't wash with logic. I feel it is just the usual political crap to puch their agenda - big socialized government down the American people.

I am getting more and more concered BO is dead serious about his past socialist ties. The "conciliation" thing, the "post partisan" thing is all one gigantic *con*. We are going to get screwed from here to China.

Well I am interested in what the dinner host has to say now that he smoozed over cavier with BO. I am not sure what the bottom line is on this whether he is positive or negative with his former dinner guest. Perhaps it is toned down because they share a passion for the same wine.

"The theory of a grand bargain is that if every American faction is being nicked simultaneously — if tax increases and benefit cuts ("cuts" understood, perhaps, as disappointing increases) make everyone surly at the same time — there will be unity born of universal grievance, which will morph into a public-spirited consensus"

I guess Will is suggesting that BO is going to nick everyone. But that is not what I heard him say. A lot of people who voted for him including some (so I have heard) minorities are already waiting for their check in the mail.

"Grace-Marie Turner, a student of health-care policies, says this SCHIP expansion is sensible — if your goal is quickly to get as many people on public coverage as possible and to have children grow up thinking that it is normal for them to get their health insurance from the government. That is the goal."

You got that right Will. But this is only the beginning I'm afraid.

****Grand, Yes. Bargain, No.

By George Will

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Days before becoming responsible, in the eyes of a public fixated on the presidency, for almost everything, Barack Obama vowed to convene a "fiscal responsibility summit." It will consider the economy's long-term problems, one of which is the growing cost of entitlements in an aging nation that is caught in the tightening grip of an iron law of welfare states: Graying means paying.

Presumably the president's summit will help chart a path toward what has been called a "grand bargain." This Big Bang will aim to create a new universe of domestic policy by, among other things, making the entitlement menu — particularly Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, which are more than 40 percent of federal spending — manageable. Obama spoke of his summit a day after the House of Representatives, evidently believing that the nation is so flush that there is no need for restraint, voted to make matters worse by enriching that menu.

By a vote of 289 to 139, with 40 Republicans joining the majority, the House, in the process of reauthorizing the State Children's Health Insurance Program, doubled the funding, thereby transforming it through "mission creep." SCHIP's purpose, when it was enacted by a Republican-controlled Congress in 1997, was to subsidize state governments as they subsidize health care for families too affluent to be eligible for Medicaid but not affluent enough to afford health insurance. Because any measure acquires momentum when it is identified as for "the children," SCHIP was said to be for "poor children" or children of "the working poor."

In 2007, after President Bush proposed a $5 billion increase in SCHIP, the House voted for a $50 billion increase but receded to the Senate's proposed $35 billion, which became the definition of moderation. That compromise, which Bush successfully vetoed, at first would have extended SCHIP eligibility to some households with incomes up to 400 percent of the poverty line (up to $83,000 for a family of four), and more than $30,000 above the median household income ($50,233). So people with incomes higher than most people's became eligible for a program supposedly for low-income people. Call that compassionate arithmetic.

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The new expansion, which is vengeance for Bush's veto, is mission gallop: It will make it much easier for some states to extend SCHIP eligibility to children from families earning up to $84,800. Furthermore, to make "poor" an extremely elastic concept, generous "income disregards" are allowed. Families can, depending on their state's policies, subtract from their income calculation what they spend on rent or mortgage or heating or food or transportation or some combination of these. So children in some families with incomes well over $100,000 will be eligible.

Grace-Marie Turner, a student of health-care policies, says this SCHIP expansion is sensible — if your goal is quickly to get as many people on public coverage as possible and to have children grow up thinking that it is normal for them to get their health insurance from the government. That is the goal.

And this is the Congress with which the president will try to strike a grand bargain. Because of the 22nd Amendment, he may not be president long enough to get a Democratic Congress to agree to the shape of the table at which to bargain.

If he does tackle the problem of the teetering entitlement system, he will do so at an unpropitious moment: Events are making reform more necessary while making it seem less urgent. A nation in which $350 billion was but the first half of the Troubled Asset Relief Program and in which TARP is distinct from the perhaps $825 billion "stimulus" program, is a nation being taught not to take seriously sums with merely nine digits and two commas. Remember, just 15 months ago Bush vetoed SCHIP because of $30 billion, a sum that, from the TARP bucket, nowadays disappears into the thin air from which much of the almost $1 trillion of stimulus will be conjured.

The theory of a grand bargain is that if every American faction is being nicked simultaneously — if tax increases and benefit cuts ("cuts" understood, perhaps, as disappointing increases) make everyone surly at the same time — there will be unity born of universal grievance, which will morph into a public-spirited consensus. Perhaps. On the other hand, George Kennan, diplomat and historian, said that the unlikelihood of any negotiation reaching an agreement grows by the square of the number of parties involved.****

I wonder if this is the first time his charm isn't working. Using his charm and a veiled means of bribery (well just take from the rich and share it with you all.) he was able to get by with deception.

I am not sure it is so much people finally seeing him for the person he is or people finally realize his policies will hurt and not help them in the long run.

Whether the independents finally see he despises the America we knew for 200 years and is intent on molding it into his conceptual ideal or simply that they will all be paying for it I don't know for sure.

I suspect he will compromise big on the health care plan. I don't underestimate his need to cling to power and I don't think he will try to ram it through without huge compromises - and then of course claim credit.

Anyway her take:

OPINION: DECLARATIONS AUGUST 13, 2009, 10:51 P.M. ET From 'Yes, We Can,' to 'No! Don't!' Obama turns out to be brilliant at becoming, not being, president.By PEGGY NOONANDon't strain the system. Don't add to the national stress level. Don't pierce when you can envelop. Don't show even understandable indignation when you can show legitimate regard. Realize that the ties that bind still bind but have grown dryer and more worn with time. They need to be strengthened, not strained.

Govern knowing we are a big, strong, mighty nation, a colossus that is, however, like all highly complex, highly wired organisms, fragile, even at places quite delicate. Don't overburden or overexcite the system. America used to have fringes, one over here and the other over there. The fringes are growing. The fringes have their own networks. All sorts of forces exist to divide us. Try always to unite.

These are things one always wants people currently rising in government to know deep in their heads and hearts. They are the things the young, fierce staffers in any new White House, and the self-proclaimed ruthless pragmatists in this one, need to hear, be told or be reminded of.

***The big, complicated, obscure, abstruse, unsettling and ultimately unhelpful health-care plans, proposals and ideas keep rolling out of Washington. Five bills, thousands of pages, "as it says on page 346, paragraph 3, subsection D." No one knows what will be passed, what will make its way through House-Senate "conference." They don't even know what the president wants, what his true agenda is. He never seems to be leveling, only talking. Everything's open to misdirection and exaggeration, and everything, people fear, will come down to some future bureaucrat's interpretation of paragraph 3, subsection D, part 22.

What a disaster this health-care debate is. It strains, stresses and pierces, it unnecessarily agitates and is doomed to be the cause of further agitation. Who doubts the final bill will be something between a pig in a poke and three-card Monte?

Which is too bad, because our health care system actually needs to be made better.

***There are smart and experienced people who say whatever the mess right now, the president will get a bill of some sort because he has the brute numeric majority. A rising number say no, this thing has roused such ire he won't get much if anything. I don't know, but this is true: If he wins it, will be a victory not worth having. It will have cost too much. It has lessened the thing an admired president must have from the people, and that is trust.

It is divisive save in one respect. The Obama White House has done the near impossible: It has united the Republican Party. Social conservatives, economic conservatives, libertarians—they're all against the health-care schemes as presented so far. They're shoulder-to-shoulder at the barricade again.

***More Peggy NoonanRead Peggy Noonan's previous columns.

And click here to order her new book, Patriotic Grace.The president's town hall meeting on Tuesday in Portsmouth, N.H., was supposed to be an antidote to the fractious town halls with members of Congress the past weeks. But it was not peaceful, only somnolent. Actually it was a bit of a disaster. It looked utterly stacked, with softball after softball thrown by awed and supportive citizens. When George W. Bush did town halls like that—full of people who'd applaud if he said tomorrow we bring democracy to Saturn—it was considered a mark of manipulation and insecurity. And it was. So was Mr. Obama's.

The first question was from a Democratic state representative from Dover named Peter Schmidt. He began, "One of the things you've been doing in your campaign to change the situation is you've been striving for bipartisanship."

"Right," the president purred. They were really holding his feet to the fire.

"My question is," Mr. Schmidt continued, "if the Republicans actively refuse to participate in a reasonable way with reasonable proposals, isn't it time to just say ,'We're going to pass what the American people need and what they want without the Republicans'?"

Stop, Torquemada, stop!

The president said it would be nice to pass a bill in a "bipartisan fashion" but "the most important thing is getting it done for the American people."

Then came a grade-school girl. "I saw a lot of signs outside saying mean things about reforming health care" she said. Here one expected a gentle and avuncular riff on the wonderful and vivid expressions of agreement and disagreement to be seen in a vibrant democracy. But no. The president made a small grimace. "I've seen some of those signs," he said. There's been a "rumor" the House voted for "death panels" that will "pull the plug on grandma," but it's all a lie.

I'm glad he'd like psychiatric care included in future coverage, because after that answer that child may need therapy.

***The president seemed like a man long celebrated as being very good at politics—the swift rise, the astute reading of a varied electorate—who is finding out day by day that he isn't actually all that good at it. In this sense he does seem reminiscent of Jimmy Carter, who was brilliant at becoming president but not being president. (Actually a lot of them are like that these days.)

Also, something odd. When Mr. Obama stays above the fray, above the nitty-gritty of specifics, when he confines his comments on health care to broad terms, he more and more seems . . . pretty slippery. In the town hall he seemed aware of this, and he tried to be very specific about the need for this aspect of a plan, and the history behind that proposal. And yet he seemed even more slippery. When he took refuge in the small pieces of his argument, he lost the major threads; when he addressed the major threads, he seemed almost to be conceding that the specifics don't hold.

When you seem slippery both in the abstract and the particular, you are in trouble.

***Looking back, a key domestic moment in this presidency occurred only eight days after his inauguration, when Mr. Obama won House passage of his stimulus bill. It was a bad bill—off point, porky and philosophically incoherent. He won 244-188, a rousing victory for a new president. But he won without a single Republican vote. That was the moment the new division took hold. The Democrats of the House pushed it through, and not one Republican, even those from swing districts, even those eager to work with the administration, could support it.

This, of course, was politics as usual. But in 2008 people voted against politics as usual.

It was a real lost opportunity. It marked the moment congressional Republicans felt free to be in full opposition. It gave congressional Democrats the impression that they were in full control, that no one could stop their train. And it was the moment the president, looking at the lay of the land, seemed to reveal he would not govern in a vaguely center-left way, as a unifying figure even if a beset one being beaten 'round the head by the left, but in a left way, without the modifying "center." Or at least as one who happily cedes to the left in Congress each day.

Things got all too vividly divided. It was a harbinger of the health care debate.

I always now think of a good president as sitting at the big desk and reaching out with his long arms and holding on to the left, and holding on to the right, and trying mightily to hold it together, letting neither spin out of control, holding on for dear life. I wish we were seeing that. I don't think we are.

Great news.I have to admit it is really great to start to see pictures of BO without that smug grin.He has to triangulate. It appears he has no other option.The truth though is we still have a huge proportion of Americans who still believe in entitlements.We have to somehow get that to change.Entitlements are NOT the answer to our problems.Yet I agree with O'Reilly - it is crazy not do something with health care. Something has to be done.But what?

« HEALTH BILL BREACHES IRS PRIVACYPOLL DISASTER FOR OBAMABy Dick Morris And Eileen McGann 09.3.2009 Published in the New York Post on September 2, 2009

This week’s polls are a disaster for President Obama. The Rasmussen poll has his approval dropping to 45 percent, after several weeks at 49 percent. The Zogby poll has it even lower — at 42 percent.

Worse yet, he’s losing his political base:

* People under 30 — long a key element of his support — give him no better than break-even ratings, with 41 percent approving and 41 percent disapproving of the job he’s doing, according to Zogby.

* Only 75 percent of Democrats, who formerly have supported Obama strongly, now approve of his performance in office. Zogby reports that this represents a slide of more than 10 points over the summer.

* Even among blacks, only 74 percent approve of the job he’s doing (also a drop of more than 10 points).

* Hispanics, who voted for him by a margin of more than 40 points, now break even (36-36) when rating his performance.

Independents, the key swing group in our politics, now deliver a sharply negative 37-50 verdict on Obama’s job performance. The elderly also give him negative ratings by 42-51.

This poll-implosion leaves Obama with few good options.

He obviously can’t get 60 votes in the Senate for his health-care proposals in their current form. No Republican will support them, and moderate Democrats aren’t likely to vote with him.

If he tries to pass it with 50 votes, using so-called reconciliation procedures, he may also fail — because he’d also lose the votes of less-moderate Democrats who’d quail at using parliamentary tricks to pass such a radical, unpopular program.

If Obama waters down his proposals to attract moderate support, he’d lose votes on the left — perhaps more than he’d gain, at this point.

Yet the longer he takes to resolve this political problem, the more his ratings will slip — diminishing his power to achieve anything. No president with support in the 30s would be able to push through a program like his health-care agenda.

It now looks like health-care reform will cripple the Obama presidency, as it did Bill Clinton’s in 1993.

Of course, Clinton was able to move to the center and secure re-election in 1996. But can a true believer like Obama do the same? He’s shown a willingness to move to the center on foreign policy, leaving troops in Iraq and adding them in Afghanistan. But on the domestic front, the only aread where he’s been willing to embrace centrist positions is education.

At best, Obama will be months if not years recovering from this disaster. In the short term, he’s likely to finish September wishing he’d stayed in Martha’s Vineyard.

FIRST ONE STORY, THEN ANOTHER — Has Google scrubbed its own News Archive?

by John Charlton(Oct. 15, 2009) — It’s the world’s largest online repository of Newspaper information, spanning the globe and more than a century of history: the Google News Archive. The Post & Email can attest to its utility and depth of coverage, which enabled it to research the biography of Judge Jerome B. Simandle and publically identify him as an ex-Naider’s Raider. This archive containes scanned images and or digitized text of printed newspapers and electronically available news reports for more than 100 years from papers and news agencies around the globe.

However, its results are skewed when you attempt to search for “Kenyan-born Obama”; results are missing; years prior to 2004 seem scrubbed; and when you click a link to an article in 2000, you get an article in 2004.Deliberate sabotage of their own news archive?This article will document what Google has done, for posterity’s sake.http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=kenyan-born+obama

This seems a simply enough query: an attempt to verify the AP story which appeared in the East African Standard, Sunday Edition of June 27, 2004: “Kenyan-born U.S. Senator Obama hopeful….”

The results are not so simple:

The first result is for April 28, 1981: The New York Times — The results say the word Obama should appear: it does not; “Kenyan-born” is found with Leaky.

There is no mention of Obama from 1981 to 2000; despite all his “work with the poor” in Chicago.

Next, the Google Newspaper Archive, the most extensive in the world omits the article in the East African Standard for June 27, 2004, in which Obama is identified as “Kenyan-born”.

The fourth result is supposed to be to a PBS story from July 27, 2000, entitled, “Illinois Candidate for the Senate Barack Obama addresses the DNCC”, but the link leads to a report by Elizabeth Brackett, discussing Obama’s Senatorial race victory on July 27, 2004: in which she says many things about Obama, except where he was born.

The fifth link is to a July 28, 2004 story by Bill Nichols, USA Today; which it states that Obama’s father is Kenyan-born; but says nothing about the son’s birth place.

The sixth likewise, on July 27, 2004, fails to mention birth place; and just says “Kenyan-born father”.

The seventh is to the Evening Gazette (Middlesbrough, England), for Nov. 8, 2004, but which seemingly has nothing to do with Obama.

Then, you would not believe it; but all the newspapers in the world, during the period from Jan. 1, 2005 to April 12, 2006, don’t make one mention of Obama! Not even one.

In April of 2006, all three articles have the same verbiage: “a Kenyan-born father and an American mother”.

In a report from the Kansas City Infozine, on Dec. 17, 2007, a Kenyan student in Washington D.C., says that Obama is not a Kenyan, and has no legal bonds to Kenya.Analysis: An Administration of Mendacity

It seems that following the AP story on June 27, 2004, Obama’s Campaign went mum about the birth place; and only began speaking about a “Kenyan-born” father. The Google Newspaper Archive has been scrubbed for all of 2005 and the first quarter of 2006. However, The Honolulu Advertiser was aware enough still on Jan. 8, 2006 that he had claimed a foreign birth; but by the summer of 2006 stories begin to appear claiming a Hawaiian birth. The reporter for the Honolulu Advertiser admitted in an email to Phil, the publisher of The Right Side of Life news site, that he had obtained his information from the web. Yet this same paper remained so convinced of Obama’s non-Hawaiian birth, that on Nov. 8, 2008, in a long piece ostensibly covering for Obama, it avoided all mention of the place of the birth. How is it that a newspaper in Hawaii after the election can’t bring itself to name the place of birth? — What did they know, that we don’t?*

What appears to have happened is what the American public has already noticed with Obama: he lies as he goes, and he makes up lies to suit his purpose; so many lies, you don’t know what the truth is; and frankly he does not seem to care.

However, if Obama cannot show documents which prove he is born in the USA; the mere fact that he has claimed to be born overseas and in the U.S.A.; first at one hospital in Hawaii and then at another; means that nothing he says in Court, and no document presented by his campaign could be taken as prima facie evidence of anything.

(snip)

The moral of this story is that scrub history as much as you might try; you will always be found out; because the very act of scrubbing leaves holes; holes which will remain as silent witnesses to your crime and indicate indirectly what kind of information you wanted to suppress.

Winston Churchill he is not. What was his famous line, something like "all I have to offer is blood, toil, sweat, and tears"?

Contrast this with our guy who ran around the world making it a point to demoralize an already demoralized nation, humiliate us more. Unilaterally volunteer to disarm, regulate our industries, gigantically expand the size of a dependent state, lecture us about what we must and must not do, pretend he wants to be bipartisan but of course *only after* he dictates the entire agenda as the most radical one ever seen in the US, and so and on and on.

The question is how long and how succesful will the bribery of select groups of voters keep this guy holding up in the polls? Fortunately most of us are still tax payers.

This is the Peggy Noonan I used to know:

***OCTOBER 23, 2009, 10:49 A.M. ET It's His Rubble Now And the American people want him to fix it.By PEGGY NOONANText At a certain point, a president must own a presidency. For George W. Bush that point came eight months in, when 9/11 happened. From that point on, the presidency—all his decisions, all the credit and blame for them—was his. The American people didn't hold him responsible for what led up to 9/11, but they held him responsible for everything after it. This is part of the reason the image of him standing on the rubble of the twin towers, bullhorn in hand, on Sept.14, 2001, became an iconic one. It said: I'm owning it.

Mr. Bush surely knew from the moment he put the bullhorn down that he would be judged on everything that followed. And he has been. Early on, the American people rallied to his support, but Americans are practical people. They will support a leader when there is trouble, but there's an unspoken demand, or rather bargain: We're behind you, now fix this, it's yours.

President Obama, in office a month longer than Bush was when 9/11 hit, now owns his presidency. Does he know it? He too stands on rubble, figuratively speaking—a collapsed economy, high and growing unemployment, two wars. Everyone knows what he's standing on. You can almost see the smoke rising around him. He's got a bullhorn in his hand every day.

It's his now. He gets the credit and the blame. How do we know this? The American people are telling him. You can see it in the polls. That's what his falling poll numbers are about. "It's been almost a year, you own this. Fix it."

***The president doesn't seem to like this moment. Who would? He and his men and women have returned to referring to what they "inherited." And what they inherited was, truly, terrible: again, a severe economic crisis and two wars. But their recent return to this theme is unbecoming. Worse, it is politically unpersuasive. It sounds defensive, like a dodge.

The president said last week, at a San Francisco fund-raiser, that he's busy with a "mop," "cleaning up somebody else's mess," and he doesn't enjoy "somebody sitting back and saying, 'You're not holding the mop the right way.'" Later, in New Orleans, he groused that reporters are always asking "Why haven't you solved world hunger yet?" His surrogates and aides, in appearances and talk shows, have taken to remembering, sometimes at great length, the dire straits we were in when the presidency began.

This is not a sign of confidence. Nor were the president's comments to a New York fund-raiser this week. Democrats, he said to the Democratic audience, are "an opinionated bunch." They always have a lot of thoughts and views. Republicans, on the other hand—"the other side"—aren't really big on independent thinking. "They just kinda sometimes do what they're told. Democrats, ya'll thinkin' for yourselves." It is never a good sign when the president gets folksy, dropping his g's, because he is by nature not a folksy g-dropper but a coolly calibrating intellectual who is always trying to guess, as most politicians do, what normal people think. When Mr. Obama gets folksy he isn't narrowing his distance from his audience but underlining it. He shouldn't do this.

But the statement that Republicans just do what they're told was like his famous explanation of unhappy voters are people who "cling to guns or religion." (What comes over him at fund-raisers?) Both statements speaks of a political misjudgment of his opponents and his situation.They show a misdiagnosis of the opposition that is politically tin-eared. Politicians looking to win don't patronize those they're trying to win over.

***But the point on the We Inherited a Terrible Situation and It's Not Our Fault argument is, again, that it is worse than unbecoming. It is unpersuasive.

How do we know this? Through the polls. In all of the major surveys, the president's popularity has gone down the past few months. A Gallup Daily Tracking Poll out this week reported Mr. Obama's job approval dropped nine points during the third quarter of this year, that is between July 1 and Sept. 30, when it fell from 62% to 53%. It was the biggest such drop Gallup has ever measured for an elected president during the same period of his term. A Fox News poll out Thursday showed support for the president's policies falling below 50% for the first time. Ominously for him, independents are peeling off. In 2006 and 2008 independents looked like Democrats. They were angry and frustrated by the wars, they sought to rebuke the Bush White House. Now those independents look like Republicans. They worry about joblessness, debts and deficits.

The White House sees the falling support. Thus the reminder: We faced an insuperable challenge, we're mopping up somebody else's mess.

The Democratic Party too sees the falling support, and is misunderstanding it. The great question they debated last week was whether the president is tough enough: Does he come across as too weak? It is true, as the cliché has it, that it's helpful for a president to be both revered and feared. But this president is not weak, that's not his problem. He willed himself into the presidency with an adroit reading of the lay of the land, brought together and dominated all the constituent pieces of victory, showed and shows impressive self-discipline, seems in general to stick to a course once he's chosen it, though arguably especially when he's wrong. His decision to let Congress write a health-care bill may yield at least the appearance of victory. And if Mr. Obama isn't twisting arms like LBJ, and then giving just an extra little jerk to snap the rotator cuff just for fun, the case can be made that day by day he's moving the Democrats of Congress in the historic direction he desires. All his adult life he's played the long game, which takes patience and skill.

The problem isn't his personality, it's his policies. His problem isn't what George W. Bush left but what he himself has done. It is a problem of political judgment, of putting forward bills that were deeply flawed or off-point. Bailouts, the stimulus package, cap-and-trade; turning to health care at the exact moment in history when his countrymen were turning their concerns to the economy, joblessness, debt and deficits—all of these reflect a misreading of the political terrain. They are matters of political judgment, not personality. (Republicans would best heed this as they gear up for 2010: Don't hit him, hit his policies. That's where the break with the people is occurring.)

The result of all this is flagging public support, a drop in the polls, and independents peeling off.

In this atmosphere, with these dynamics, Mr. Obama's excuse-begging and defensiveness won't work.

Everyone knows he was handed horror. They want him to fix it.

At some point, you own your presidency. At some point it's your rubble. At some point the American people tell you it's yours. The polls now, with the presidential approval numbers going down and the disapproval numbers going up: That's the American people telling him.

LOL at that line.Noonan who once pointed out BO is "no Abe LIncoln", than had a little egg on her face when he got elected can no bring that line up again - touche!

We are hearing it all now. Lincoln was disliked early in his Presidency etc so why not OBama?

"OPINION: DECLARATIONS NOVEMBER 30, 2009 He Can't Take Another Bow By PEGGY NOONANText Last week, two points in an emerging pointillist picture of a White House leaking support—not the support of voters, though polls there show steady decline, but in two core constituencies, Washington's Democratic-journalistic establishment, and what might still be called the foreign-policy establishment.

From journalist Elizabeth Drew, a veteran and often sympathetic chronicler of Democratic figures, a fiery denunciation of—and warning for—the White House. In a piece in Politico on the firing of White House counsel Greg Craig, Ms. Drew reports that while the president was in Asia last week, "a critical mass of influential people who once held big hopes for his presidency began to wonder whether they had misjudged the man." They once held "an unromantically high opinion of Obama," and were key to his rise, but now they are concluding that the president isn't "the person of integrity and even classiness they had thought."

She scored "the Chicago crowd," which she characterized as "a distressingly insular and small-minded West Wing team." The White House, Ms. Drew says, needs adult supervision—"an older, wiser head, someone with a bit more detachment."

As I read Ms. Drew's piece, I was reminded of something I began noticing a few months ago in bipartisan crowds. I would ask Democrats how they thought the president was doing. In the past they would extol, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, his virtues. Increasingly, they would preface their answer with, "Well, I was for Hillary."

This in turn reminded me of a surprising thing I observe among loyal Democrats in informal settings and conversations: No one loves Barack Obama. Half the American people say they support him, and Democrats are still with him. But there were Bill Clinton supporters who really loved him. George W. Bush had people who loved him. A lot of people loved Jack Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. But no one seems to love Mr. Obama now; they're not dazzled and head over heels. That's gone away.

He himself seems a fairly chilly customer; perhaps in turn he inspires chilly support. But presidents need that rock-bottom 20% who, no matter what's happening—war, unemployment—adore their guy, have complete faith in him, and insist that you love him, too.

They're the hard 20 a president always keeps. Nixon kept them! Obama probably has a hard 20 too, but whatever is keeping them close, it doesn't seem to be love.

***Just as stinging as Elizabeth Drew on domestic matters was Leslie Gelb on Mr. Obama and foreign policy in the Daily Beast. Mr. Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations and fully plugged into the Democratic foreign-policy establishment, wrote this week that the president's Asia trip suggested "a disturbing amateurishness in managing America's power." The president's Afghanistan review has been "inexcusably clumsy," Mideast negotiations have been "fumbling." So unsuccessful was the trip that Mr. Gelb suggested Mr. Obama take responsibility for it "as President Kennedy did after the Bay of Pigs."

He added that rather than bowing to emperors—Mr. Obama "seems to do this stuff spontaneously and inexplicably"—he should begin to bow to "the voices of experience" in Washington.

When longtime political observers start calling for wise men, a president is in trouble.

It also raises a distressing question: Who are the wise men and women now? Who are the Robert Lovetts, Chip Bohlens and Robert Strausses who can came in to help a president in trouble right his ship? America seems short of wise men, or short on those who are universally agreed to be wise. I suppose Vietnam was the end of that, but establishments exist for a reason, and it is hard for a great nation to function without the presence of a group of "the oldest and wisest" who can not only give sound advice but help engineer how that advice will be reported and received.

***Mr Obama is in a hard place. Health care hangs over him, and if he is lucky he will lose a close vote in the Senate. The common wisdom that he can't afford to lose is exactly wrong—he can't afford to win with such a poor piece of legislation. He needs to get the issue behind him, vow to fight another day, and move on.

Afghanistan hangs over him, threatening the unity of his own Democratic congressional base. There is the growing perception of incompetence, of the inability to run the machine of government. This, with Americans, is worse than Mr. Obama's rebranding as a leader who governs from the left. Americans demand baseline competence. If he comes to be seen as Jimmy Carter was, that the job was bigger than the man, that will be the end.

Which gets us back to the bow.

In a presidency, a picture or photograph becomes iconic only when it seems to express something people already think. When Gerald Ford was spoofed for being physically clumsy, it took off. The picture of Ford losing his footing and tumbling as he came down the steps of Air Force One became a symbol. There was a reason, and it wasn't that he was physically clumsy. He was not only coordinated but graceful. He'd been a football star at the University of Michigan and was offered contracts by the Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers.

But the picture took off because it expressed the growing public view that Ford's policies were bumbling and stumbling. The picture was iconic of a growing political perception.

The Obama bowing pictures are becoming iconic, and they would not be if they weren't playing off a growing perception. If the pictures had been accompanied by headlines from Asia saying "Tough Talks Yield Big Progress" or "Obama Shows Muscle in China," the bowing pictures might be understood this way: "He Stoops to Conquer: Canny Obama shows elaborate deference while he subtly, toughly, quietly advances his nation's interests."

But that's not how the pictures were received or will be remembered.

It is true that Mr. Obama often seems not to have a firm grasp of—or respect for—protocol, of what has been done before and why, and of what divergence from the traditional might imply. And it is true that his political timing was unfortunate. When a great nation is feeling confident and strong, a surprising presidential bow might seem gracious. When it is feeling anxious, a bow will seem obsequious.

The Obama bowing pictures are becoming iconic not for those reasons, however, but because they express a growing political perception, and that is that there is something amateurish about this presidency, something too ad hoc and highly personalized about it, something . . . incompetent, at least in its first year.

It is hard to be president, and White Houses under pressure take refuge in thoughts that become mantras. When the previous White House came under mounting criticism from 2005 through '08, they comforted themselves by thinking, They criticized Lincoln, too. You could see their minds whirring: Lincoln was criticized, Lincoln was great, ergo we are great. But of course just because they say you're stupid doesn't mean you're Lincoln.

***One senses the Obama people are doing the Lincoln too, and adding to it the consoling thought that this is only the first year, we've got three years to go, we can change perceptions, don't worry.

But they should worry. You can get tagged, typed and pegged your first year. Gerald Ford did, and Ronald Reagan too, more happily. The first year is when indelible impressions are made and iconic photos emerge.

Lou Pritchett is one of corporate America's true living legends- an acclaimed author, dynamic teacher and one of the world's highest rated speakers. Successful corporate executives everywhere recognize him as the foremost leader in change management.. Lou changed the way America does business by creating an audacious concept that came to be known as "partnering." Pritchett rose from soap salesman to Vice-President, Sales and Customer Development for Procter and Gamble and over the course of 36 years, made corporate history.

AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA

Dear President Obama:

You are the thirteenth President under whom I have lived and unlike any of the others, you truly scare me.

You scare me because after months of exposure, I know nothing about you.

You scare me because I do not know how you paid for your expensive Ivy League education and your upscale lifestyle and housing with no visible signs of support.

You scare me because you did not spend the formative years of youth growing up in America and culturally you are not an American.

You scare me because you have never run a company or met a payroll.

You scare me because you have never had military experience, thus don't understand it at its core.

You scare me because you lack humility and 'class', always blaming others.

You scare me because for over half your life you have aligned yourself with radical extremists who hate America and you refuse to publicly denounce these radicals who wish to see America fail..

You scare me because you are a cheerleader for the 'blame America ' crowd and deliver this message abroad.

You scare me because you want to change America to a European style country where the government sector dominates instead of the private sector.

You scare me because you want to replace our health care system with a government controlled one.

You scare me because you prefer 'wind mills' to responsibly capitalizing on our own vast oil, coal and shale reserves.

You scare me because you want to kill the American capitalist goose that lays the golden egg which provides the highest standard of living in the world.

You scare me because you have begun to use 'extortion' tactics against certain banks and corporations.

You scare me because your own political party shrinks from challenging you on your wild and irresponsible spending proposals.

You scare me because you will not openly listen to or even consider opposing points of view from intelligent people.

You scare me because you falsely believe that you are both omnipotent and omniscient.

You scare me because the media gives you a free pass on everything you do.

You scare me because you demonize and want to silence the Limbaugh's, Hannitys, O'Reillys and Becks who offer opposing, conservative points of view.

You scare me because you prefer controlling over governing.

Finally, you scare me because if you serve a second term I will probably not feel safe in writing a similar letter in 8 years.

Lou Pritchett * * This letter was sent to the NY Times but they never acknowledged it. Big surprise. Since it hit the internet, however, it has had over 500,000 hits. Keep it going. All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing.. It's happening right now.*http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/youscareme.asp

I prefer to focus on the way forward, but a big part of it is to recognize exactly where we are right now. The governing mistakes as we see them is what is uniting and energizing a new movement. I would challenge any supporter to point out anything in this or the previous, Crafty's Procter & Gamble post, that is untrue or unfair criticism.----------------------------------------America 101 With Dean Obama, (Victor Davis Hanson, Works and Days)

America is now a campus, and Obama is our Dean

This is the strangest presidency I have seen in my lifetime. President Obama gives soaring lectures on civility, but still continues his old campaign invective (“get in their face,” “bring a gun to a knife fight,” etc.) with new attacks on particular senators, Rush Limbaugh, and entire classes of people—surgeons, insurers, Wall Street, those at Fox News, tea-partiers, etc.

And like the campaign, he still talks of bipartisanship (remember, he was the most partisan politician in the Senate), but has rammed through health care without a single Republican vote. His entire agenda—federal take-overs of businesses, near two-trillion-dollar deficits, health care, amnesty, and cap and trade—does not earn a majority in the polls. Indeed, the same surveys reveal him to be the most polarizing president in memory.

His base was hyper-critical of deficit spending under Bush, the war on terror, Iraq and Afghanistan, and government involvement with Wall Street. But suddenly even the most vocal of the left have gone silent as Obama’s felonies have trumped Bush’s misdemeanors on every count.

All this reminds me of the LaLa land of academia. Let me explain.

That Was Then, This is Now

Last week, Obama was at it again. He blasted the oil companies and his own government for lax regulation in the Gulf, apparently convinced that no one in the media would consider his last 16 months of governance in any way responsible for, well, federal governance. (I don’t have strong views on the degree of culpability a president has for lax federal agencies amid disasters, only that I learned from the media between 2004-8 that a president must accept a great deal blame after most catastrophes [at least Katrina was nature- rather than human- induced].)

Obama also trashed, inter alia, Halliburton for the spill, as he had done on other matters ritually in the campaign (“I will finally end the abuse of no-bid contracts once and for all,” “The days of sweetheart deals for Halliburton will be over when I’m in the White House”). Obama seemed to assume that few cared that his administration just gave Halliburton a $568 million no-bid contract.

Standards for Thee, But Not …

When a Senator Obama a while back weighed in on the ill-fated Harriet Miers, he quite logically predicated his skepticism on a dearth of publications (though I found that embarrassing at the time since Senator/Law Professor Obama was essentially without a record of scholarly work), and an absence of judicial experience—both legitimate concerns. So, of course, are we now to expect Obama to talk up his recent Supreme Court nominee Ms. Kagan, and ignore her relative lack of scholarly experience without a judicial past (sort of like being secretary of education without having taught anything)? Does the president, who as a senator voted to deny a court seat to Alito and Roberts, think Kagan is better qualified than either, and, if so, on what grounds—more scholarship, more judicial experience, a more diverse upbringing, intangible criteria like once recruiting Barack Obama?

I once wondered during the campaign whether such serial contradictions in the Obama narrative ever mattered. During his denials of ever hearing Rev. Wright engage in the pastor’s trademark hate speech, I recalled Obama’s 2004 interview with the Sun-Times when he was running for the Senate and wanted to boast of his religious fides. When asked, “Do you still attend Trinity?” Obama snapped right back, “Yep. Every week. 11 o’clock service.” Every week, but mysteriously not those in which Wright did his customary race-bashing?

When for the first time since 1976 a presidential candidate reneged on promises to participate in pubic financing in the general relations, I remembered Obama’s early promise to do the opposite. The press slept on that.

The list of his blatant contradictions could be multiplied. I’ve written here about the past demagoguing on tribunals, Predators, Guantanamo, renditions, Afghanistan, Iraq, wiretaps, intercepts, and the Patriot Act, and the subsequent Obama embrace of all of them, in some cases even trumping Bush in his exuberance.

The Never-ending Story

We could play this game with the entire health care debate—all on C-SPAN, will save billions, not cost billions as the CBO now attests, etc.—the pledge not to hire lobbyists or allow earmarks, to pledge to post legislation for a specified time on the government website, the pledge to prohibit his team from returning within 2 years to the private lobbying revolving door, and so on.

The blatant hypocrisy and untruths are superimposed on a constant (it has not yet begun to let up in his second year) refrain of either “Bush did it” or “the opposition won’t let me be bipartisan.”

Where does this disregard for the truth arise? On the most superficial level, of course, Obama realizes that the media is obsequious and sanctions almost anything he does. He knows that his base was always interested in power, not principle (has anyone seen any war protests the last few weeks against Afghanistan or Iraq, or Guantanamo, or the quadrupling of Predator attacks? Or for that matter, are there anti-Obama Hispanic protests over the increased crackdown on employers and greater deportations than during the Bush era?).

America 101

Yet again, neither the press nor his chameleon followers quite explain what is going on. Instead, I think we, the American people, are seen by Obama as a sort of Ivy League campus, with him as an untouchable dean. So we get the multicultural bromides, the constant groupthink, and the reinvention of the self that we see so often among a professional class of administrator in universities (we used to get their memos daily and they read like an Obama teleprompted speech). Given his name, pedigree, charisma, and eloquence, Obama could say or do almost anything—in the way race/class/gender adjudicate reality on campus, or perhaps in the manner the old gentleman C, pedigreed rich students at prewar Princeton sleepwalked through their bachelor’s degrees, almost as a birthright. (I am willing to apologize for this crude analogy when the Obama Columbia undergraduate transcript is released and explains his next rung Harvard.) In other words, the public does not grasp to what degree supposedly elite universities simply wave their own rules when they find it convenient.

In academia, there are few consequences for much of anything; but in Obama’s case his legal career at Chicago seems inexplicable without publications (and even more surreal when Law Dean Kagan laments on tape her difficulties in recruiting him to the law school—but how would that be possible when a five- or six-book law professor from a Texas or UC Irvine would never get such an offer from a Chicago or Harvard?).

What You Say You Are

On an elite university campus what you have constructed yourself into always matters more than what you have done. An accent mark here, a hyphenated name there is always worth a book or two. There is no bipartisanship or indeed any political opposition on campuses; if the Academic Senate weighs in on national issues to “voice concern,” the ensuing margin of vote is usually along the lines of Saddam’s old lopsided referenda.

In other words, Obama assumed as dean he would talk one way, do another, and was confident he could “contextualize” and “construct” a differing narrative—to anyone foolish enough who questioned the inconsistency. As we have seen with Climategate, or the Gore fraud, intent always trumps empiricism in contemporary intellectual circles. Obama simply cannot be held to the same standard we apply to most other politicians—given his heritage, noble intention, and landmark efforts to transform America into something far fairer.

Like so many academics, Obama becomes petulant when crossed, and like them as well, he “deigns” to know very little out of his field (from Cinco de Mayo to the liberation of Auschwitz), and only a little more in it. Obama voiced the two main gospels of the elite campus: support for redistributive mechanisms with other people’s wealth; and while abroad, a sort of affirmative action for less successful nations: those who are failing and criticized the U.S. under Bush proved insightful and worthy of outreach ( a Russia or Syria); but those who allied themselves with us (an Israel or Colombia) are now suspect.

The Intrusions of the Real World

How does our tenure with Obama as dean end?

I have no idea other than I think at some point Obama’s untruths, hypocrisies, and contradictions will, in their totality, finally remind the voter he is not a student.

After all, America is not a campus. It has real jobs that are not lifelong sinecures. Americans work summers. There are consequences when rhetoric does not match reality. Outside of Harvard or Columbia, debt has to be paid back and is not called stimulus. We worry about jobs lost, not those in theory created or saved. We don’t blame predecessors for our own ongoing failures. Those who try to kill us are enemies, whose particular grievances we don’t care much to know about. Diversity is lived rather than professed; temporizing is not seen as reflection, but weakness.

And something not true is not a mere competing narrative, but a flat-out lie.

Doug and Crafty,Two good posts that sum it all up.Yet his approval ratings continue to stay at around 48%.As long as the 48% see him as taking from tax payers to pay for *their* benefits it doesn't appear these approval ratings will change much.It is a sad state of affairs.The only way I can think of is that we have to convince the 48% that big government is not the long term solution for them as well as for those who work to pay for all this stuff. Many of them won't care in the least. Perhaps a few forward thinkers among them might see the light. In the health field I see all day long people gaiming the system. Government can and will always be "gamed".There is always talk amongst the liberal crowd how the wealthy and the corporations game the system. One never hears a peep from them about those on the dole who are doing the same thing. Doesnt that say it all that they will not say anything about this because this is where they get their power from?They don't want a lot of peopel off welfare, they don't want people to not be tied to food stamps, government sponsored loans, medicaid, unemployment etc.

Intellectually honest academics would be the first to point out that if you spoil people with freebies at others expense, you only serve to encourage the same behavior. Psychology 101.

So we must first convince Americans to believe in themselves and private opportunities - not government. Is it doable? Hopefully, it is for enough voters to get this guy kicked out of office for good.

Concerning that 48% support: FWIW I have this idea that "People think backwards" i.e. FIRST they choose the position that makes the statement about themselves that they wish to make, THEN the learn the facts and reasoning that support that position. This is why so few people change their minds when confronted with facts to the contrary or clearer thinking. BO's success is based upon his calling to things that people want to say about themselves:

CCP, Good point, 48% is a pretty high rating for this level of failure. The popularity of some of the policies have dropped below the personal approvals and that is encouraging. Among the 48% there some we need to persuade and the rest that we need to defeat politically (from my point of view).

I posted the VDH piece but I think it is a mistake to go too far down the road of exposing and defeating this person Obama. It is the mindset that needs defeating, as you put it: "freebies at others expense" or as Congressman Paul Ryan put it: "more takers than makers".

I recall obsessing over Whitewater and all the lies of the Clinton insiders, but it was the attempt at over-expansion of government, not personal failings, that brought in the Gringrich congress, welfare reform, capital gains tax rate cuts and a balanced budget.

A serious move in the direction of reforming "freebies at others expense" today could alleviate the border crisis, election fraud, the deficit, the debt, the monetary problems, the unemployment rate, the state bankruptcies, the housing crisis, education costs and the healthcare spiral IMHO.

In referring to past email inquiries he received on this subject, Limbaugh continued, "They are interesting because those people haven't surfaced. There aren't any ex-girlfriends that have admitted it."

In fact, I wrote about this question in my book, "Deconstructing Obama," and on these pages last year. As the likely source of these rumors, I thought I might clarify them, at least to the degree they can be clarified.

As it happens, Obama inadvertently raised the girlfriend issue himself in his 1995 memoir, "Dreams from My Father." Published when he was 33, "Dreams" documents Obama's all-consuming search for identity.

Whether he dated white women or black women – and what he might have learned from either – matters, but Obama gives the reader very close to nothing.

"Cosby never got the girl on 'I Spy,'" he laments in "Dreams," but in his own retelling, he does not do much better.

Although Obama spent 13 years on the mainland as a single man, on only one occasion in "Dreams" does Obama make any reference to his love life.

In a brief recounting, he tells his half-sister, Auma, that in addition to a white woman he had loved and lost, "There are several black ladies out there who've broken my heart just as good."

The problem is that Obama shares with the reader not a word about any of the black ladies, and not one of them has come forward on her own.

The white woman in question presents a different set of problems. In terms of height, hair color, eye color, parentage and highly specific place of origin – namely a large country estate with a lake in the middle – she is a dead ringer for Bill Ayers' lost love, the late Weatherwoman Diana Oughton.

In his definitive Obama-friendly biography, "The Bridge," David Remnick likewise falls silent on the subject of girlfriends, white or black.

Remnick interviews hundreds of people in Obama's life, but unless I missed something, he offers not a single interview of an Obama girlfriend.

Obama biographer Christopher Andersen made a serious effort to identify the mystery white woman, but he failed.

"No one," he writes, "including [Obama's] roommate and closest friend at the time, Siddiqi, knew of this mysterious lover's existence."

To be sure, Obama did court and marry his wife, Michelle. This tale of courtship, however, is strikingly devoid of any reference to love, sex or romance.

At his most passionate, Obama says of Michelle, "In her eminent practicality and Midwestern attitudes, she reminds me not a little of Toot [his grandmother]." That description must surely have warmed Michelle's heart.

In his second book, "Audacity of Hope," Obama does not even get the date of their first meeting right. "I met Michelle in the summer of 1988," he writes, "while we were both working at Sidley & Austin."

Obama acknowledges he had just finished his first year at law school, but he did not begin Harvard Law until the fall of 1988.

As has become more and more evident, there are some serious manipulations in the Obama narrative. If the year he first met Michelle is not one of them, the courtship of the mystery white woman is.

Jack Cashill is an Emmy-award winning independent writer and producer with a Ph.D. in American Studies from Purdue. His latest book is the blockbuster "Deconstructing Obama: The Life, Love and Letters of America's First Post-Modern President."

In the end women will vote their pocketbooks like everyone else. Older women will vote against Obama to some extent because they will not like how he is destroying America as we know it (and possibly medicare soc sec - if that is how it is projected). Younger women, particularly the single mothers, will vote Democratic for obvious reasons.

I don't think the sexual thing will be a big factor despite what anyone tells us now.

Obama and Lincoln? They may not have been ladies men but there was one difference - a little thing called honesty.

But interestingly enough we know far more about Lincoln who lived 150 yrs ago than we do about Obama's earlier life don't we?

Actually, I disagree; I think older women and many older men for that matter will vote Democrat because Obama is perceived as the one versus the Republicans trying to save Social Security and not lower/change/privatize benefits. Republicans (I think it's necessary) are the ones trying to reduce benefits and/or privatize i.e. take away guaranteed benefits. All the older people I know vote with their pocketbook and don't want any changes. They like Social Security and Medicare just the way it is.

Of course we know far more about Lincoln; we have had 150 years to study him. That is true of anyone.

As for Newt's serial adultery (documented not once but twice; maybe more but we don't know) when the gloves come off I've got a feeling that will become an issue. Morals are important. Especially for women. I don't think that his divorces (note plural) is the issue per se; it's that he was having affairs over and over again while he was still married. Doesn't say much for his integrity. Or family values...

"I can't wait for the ads" [presumably DNC and anonymous outsider groups airing constant prime time advertising loaded with innuendo about a candidate's unfaithfulness more than a dozen years ago as the country goes down in decline]? - That's what you hope the campaign is about? I would counter with 60 second, unnarrated videos of the President's terrible golf swing; this occurred while he was President! We can run the economic headlines in the subtitles.

"Obama compared to Gingrich is a SAINT." - What we know about Obama's fidelity is a record of no accusations- yet. Marital fidelity is considered an indicator that one as President would be faithful to his country's best interests. Didn't someone add Eisenhower, HW Bush and perhaps Reagan in his first marriage to the list of Democratic Presidential cheaters, FDR, JFK, LBJ, and WJC, all since women's suffrage. President Obama already has a record of not supporting his country's best interest to judge IMO, running up the debt, devaluing the currency, investing in failed and corrupt companies with taxpayer money, leaving our oil in the ground while paying Brazil to drill. We won't need innuendo from his bedroom to judge what he would do as President. OTOH, I think Nixon was faithful.

"Think women vote.... or not...."

People who tolerate no sin are left, as usual, with no politician to support. "Did some blow" comes to mind, distrusting white people, despising the clingers of middle America, running guns into international crime rings, etc. With 11 months left, I would not assume this President will be without his own scandals.

"Heck, even I find Gingrich disgusting...."

But we didn't determine whether you are a voter we are trying to attract. If you don't also see the positive side of the Gingrich message that is grabbing the momentum by storm, perhaps you are among the voters we wish to defeat this coming year.

If the majority of people are already irreparably offended by Newt, why would attack ads be necessary? If he can't get through the family values voters in Iowa and elsewhere, he won't be the candidate anyway. But it's funny how the attacks on the person only make someone like me, an unforgiving family values voter, want to jump up to defend him.

The questions of 2012 IMO will be of bigger vs. smaller government and collapse vs. growth of our private economy, and surrender vs. survival in our global security interests. Now that you mention it though, I am wondering if this President ever had pre-marital sex before Rev. Jeremiah Wright of "God DAMN America" fame proudly joined them in Holy matrimony.-----There is no Republican social security proposal that takes benefits away from current recipients or people near retirement age but that is good reminder of the disingenuous smears that are sure to come.

Well, last night I was told that Obama's speech writer was "Jon Faverau." This is true, as it turns out, but he had nothing to do with "Swingers" or "Iron Man." Also, I thought there were some interesting tidbits in there: his apology to HC, his initial meeting of Obama backstage at the DNC in 2004, etc. Nothing really important, just interesting. And, as Obama's speechwriter, he does play a pretty major role in the "Obama Phenomena."

The meaning of Obama speech writer might depend on the reader's own bias. For me it was a Wizard of Oz moment, seeing Toto pull the curtain back a little. We know the President gives great sounding speeches. We know his policies don't exactly match his rhetoric. And we know that without the teleprompter he is not the same orator. That leads me to great curiosity aimed at the person behind the words in the speeches.

They used to call Karl Rove 'George Bush's brain', but he was a strategist more than a writer.

They all have speechwriters and they all work with their speechwriters to get the message they want. With Obama, that importance of that relationship is exceptional.

Interesting that the person behind the teleprompter is a very smart guy, valedictorian of Holy Cross, Catholic and in his 20s, at least until now. For one thing, it takes a very, very, very smart guy to believe that government could replace the aggregate wisdom of all individual decisions made in the marketplace.

OBAMA'S KANSAS SPEECH: THE REBUTTALBy DICK MORRISPublished on DickMorris.com on December 8, 2011

Printer-Friendly VersionOn Tuesday, President Obama went to a small town in Kansas to lay out his basic campaign theme for the coming election: A commitment to "fairness." In Obama's America, we all are dependent on the government, closely regulated, heavily taxed...and poor. He boldly proclaims that "rugged individualism" doesn't work and neither do tax cuts.

Instead, government management of the economy, heavy subsidies, and universal welfare is the key to economic health.

But in Obama's obsessive focus on income redistribution, he ignores the basic question of wealth and job creation. Where will the money he wants to tax come from? Who will generate the well paid jobs he wants to pass around? What entrepreneur will take a risk or invent a product or service or pioneer a new business when he cannot be sure of keeping what he earns?

To Obama, "fairness" is defined as meaning we all move up or down together and nobody gets more than his "fair" share. Fair? Determined by who? By the government! By politicians seeking votes. In his world, it is through political action, not economic initiative, that people assure their upward mobility.

But, as Margaret Thatcher said "sooner or later you run out of other people's money." And there is no wealth to redistribute, no money to allocate "fairly." In Obama's America, there are no incentives for creating jobs. So there will be no jobs. There is no reason to take risks. So nobody will take risks. There is no capacity for individual initiative. So there won't be any.

Never has Obama laid out as completely his disastrous vision for America. He has now articulated his socialist vision for our country. It won't work. It is a recipe for national decay and dependency.

Nor will it work politically. In a recent Rasmussen Poll, voters agreed by 3:1 that they had more to fear from overreaching politicians than from greedy businessmen. A politics based on envy and class division just won't fly in the United States. Obama's got the wrong country.

Contrasting leadership styles. You would think this President could at least pretend to be humble and have surrogates like the VP or media toot his horn for him. IIRC, Reagan had some humility that added to his likability. Pres. Obama will brag more about getting unemployment down to 8% than Pres. Reagan did about getting the real economic growth rate up to 8%, after asphyxiating stagflation.